GIFT    OF 
JANE  KoSATHER 


Huxley  Memorial  Lectures 


Huxley 
Memorial  Lectures 

to  the 

University  of  Birmingham 


With  an  Introduction   by 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  D.Sc.,  F.R.S. 


Birmingham 

Cornish  Brothers   Ltd 

Publishers  to  the  University 

39  New  Street 

1914 


•    -.  • 
.  '      -.-• 


Contents 


Pages 

Introduction  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge        ...              ...  3—8 

Huxley  by  Sir  Michael  Foster              ...              ...  9 — 43 

Huxley  and  Natural  Selection  by  Professor  E.  B. 

Poulton,  F.R.S.              ..             ...             ...  45—51 

Rationalism    and  Science  in  Relation  to  Social 

Movements  by  Professor  Percy  Gardner      ...  53 — 97 

Life    and    Consciousness    by    Professor     Henri 

Bergson           ...              ...              ...              ...  99 — 128 

Pleochroic  Haloes  (illustrated)  by  Professor  John 

Joly,  F.R.S.    ...              ...              ...              ...  129—160 


338412 


INTRODUCTION. 


A  few  years  ago  a  Governor  of  the  University 
of  Birmingham,  admiring  the  genius  of  Huxley, 
and  wishing  to  do  something  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  his  association  with  Birmingham,  gave 
an  endowment  for  the  perpetual  provision  of  a 
Lecture  to  be  given  annually,  to  the  assembled 
University  and  its  friends,  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Huxley  Lecture."  No  conditions  were  attached, 
and  no  subject  was  prescribed,  save  that  it  should 
be  on  some  theme  which  might  have  interested 
Huxley — a  scope  sufficiently  wide  for  anything. 

It  seemed  appropriate  that  the  first  one  or  two 
lectures  should  deal  with  some  aspect  of  Huxley 
himself,  and  his  friend  Sir  Michael  Foster  was 
asked  to  give  the  first  lecture  on  the  more  personal 
side.  No  claim  was  made  on  the  lecturers  as 
to  publication,  nor  was  the  discourse  even  written 
in  every  case.  Those  that  were  written  often 
appeared  subsequently  in  some  serial  publication 
and  thus  became  more  widely  accessible. 


4  INTRODUCTION 

; ;" -Recently  it  has  been  thought  desirable  to  col- 
lect such  of  these  lectures  as  were  available  and 
publish  them  together ;  and  thanks  are  due  to  the 
owners  of  the  copyright  for  the  permission  freely 
given  for  this  local  re-publication. 

The  connection  of  Huxley  with  Birmingham 
may  not  be  generally  known.  But  in  the  year 
1874  he  came  down  to  give  an  address  on  the 
occasion  of  the  presentation  of  a  statue  of  Joseph 
Priestley  to  the  town  of  Birmingham — the  town 
in  which  that  scientific  pioneer  and  political 
philosopher  had  been  ill-used,  his  property 
destroyed,  and  himself  expelled,  at  the  time 
of  the  Birmingham  "Church  and  King"  Riots 
in  1791.  The  address  which  Huxley  de- 
livered on  that  occasion  is  the  first  of  the  col- 
lected Essays  re-published  by  Messrs.  Macmillan 
in  the  Eversley  Series.  The  volume  containing 
this  particular  address  is  called  "  Science  and 
Education,"  it  appeared  in  1893  and  has  been 
many  times  reprinted. 

Huxley  came  to  Birmingham  also  to  lay  the 
foundation  stone  of  Mason  College,  which  was 
the  predecessor  and  parent  of  the  University; 
and  when  that  College  was  opened — which  it  was 
in  1880,  under  the  early  title  "  Sir  Josiah  Mason's 
Science  College " — Huxley  came  again  and 
delivered  the  Inaugural  Address;  an  Address 
which  is  published  in  the  volume  already  men- 
tioned, under  the  title  "  Science  and  Culture," 


INTRODUCTION  5 

The  complete  list  of  the  Huxley  Lectures  so 
far  given  is  as  follows  : — 


Date. 


Lecturer. 


Title. 


1 

16th  March,  1904 

Sir  Michael  Foster   .. 

"The    Work    and    Influence    of 
Thomas  Henry  Hniley." 

(Published    in    The  National  Re- 

view,  Vol.  43,  1904.) 

2 

23rd  March,  1905 

Prof.  E-  B.  Poulton   .. 

"Thomas  Henry  Huxley  and  the 
Theory  ef  Natural  Selection.1' 

(Published  [not  in  .full]  in  The 

Scientific     A  •merican   Supple" 

ment,  Vol.  59,  April,  1905.) 

3 

27th  Nov.,  1907 

Prof.  Sir  J.J.Thomson 

"The  Influence    of  Recent    Dis- 

coveries in  Electrioityon  ourOon- 
ceptions  of  Matter  and  Ether." 

4 

25th  Nov.,  1908 

Prof.  Sir  Ronald  Ross 

"Malaria." 

5 

1st  Deo.,  1909 

Prof.  William  Bateson 

"  Mendelian  Heredity.1' 

6 

23rd  Nov.,  1910 

Prof.  Percy  Gardner.. 

"  Rationalism  and  Science  in  rela- 

tion to  Social  Movements.'1 

7 

29th  May,  1911 

Prof  Henri  Bergs  on  • 

"Life  and  Consciousness." 

(Published  in  The  Hibbert  Journal 

October,  1911.) 

8 

30th  Oct.,  1912 

Prof.  John  Jo  ly 

"Pleochroic  Haloes.' 

(Published  in  Bedrock,  Jan.,  1913). 

9 

8th  Deo.,  1913 

Sir  Arthnr  Evans 

"The  Ages  of  Minos." 

And  of  these,  Numbers  i,  2,  6,  7,  and  8  are  here 
reproduced;  the  others,  for  various  reasons,  are 
not  available. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  Huxley — a  man 
for  whom  I  personally  had  a  profound  admira- 
tion— let  me  take  the  opportunity  of  emphasising 
the  unfairness,  as  well  as  the  illiterateness,  of 
claiming  him  as  a  materialistic  philosopher,  or  as 
an  advocate  of  philosophic  Materialism,  merely 
because  he  set  his  face  in  the  direction  of  a 


6  INTRODUCTION 

rational  interpretation  of  nature,  and  combated 
many  intellectual  errors  with  which  the  theology 
of  that  day  had,  through  careless  thinking  and 
uncritical  exegesis,  been  sorely  tainted.  The 
mistake  is  made — though  that  is  no  excuse — be- 
cause he  emphasised,  as  Newton  did,  the  duty  of 
scientific  men  to  study  and  emphasise  every 
extension  of  the  province  of  what  we  call 
"  Matter  "  and  "  Force  " ;  and  because  he  urged 
that  "  the  growth  of  science,  not  merely  of  physi- 
cal science,  but  of  all  science,  means  the  demon- 
stration of  order  and  natural  causation  among 
phenomena  which  had  not  previously  been 
brought  under  those  conceptions." 

Doubtless  the  claim  that  Huxley  was  a  sup- 
porter of  philosophic  Materialism,  as  against 
Idealism,  is  only  made  by  half  educated  people ; 
but  such  persons  are  numerous ;  and  hence  for  the 
present  it  is  desirable  to  take  every  opportunity 
of  pointing  out  that  the  contention  is  untrue,  and 
was  always  resented  by  Huxley  himself.  The  fol- 
lowing quotation  from  his  1886  essay  "  Science 
and  Morals,"  now  included  in  the  volume  called 
"  Evolution  and  Ethics,"  will  suffice  to  show  how 
he  regarded  such  a  rhetorical  accusation. 
^Evolution  and  Ethics,  p.  129-130.] 

"  I  understand  the  main  tenet  of  Material- 
ism to  be  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  universe 
but  matter  and  force;  and  that  all  the 
phenomena  of  nature  are  explicable  by  de- 
duction from  the  properties  assignable  to 


INTRODUCTION  7 

these  two  primitive  factors.  That  great 
champion  of  Materialism  whom  Mr.  Lilly 
appears  to  consider  to  be  an  authority  in 
physical  science,  Dr.  Biichner,  embodies  this 
article  of  faith  on  his  title-page.  Kraft  und 
Stoff — force  and  matter — are  paraded  as  the 
Alpha  and  Omega  of  existence.  This  I 
apprehend  is  the  fundamental  article  of  the 
faith  materialistic;  and  whosoever  does  not 
hold  it  is  condemned  by  the  more  zealous  of 
the  persuasion  (as  I  have  some  reason  to 
know)  to  the  Inferno  appointed  for  fools  or 
hypocrites.  But  all  this  I  heartily  dis- 
believe ;  and  at  the  risk  of  being  charged 
with  wearisome  repetition  of  an  old  story,  I 
will  briefly  give  my  reasons  for  persisting  in 
my  infidelity.  In  the  first  place,  as  I  have 
already  hinted,  it  seems  to  me  pretty  plain 
that  there  is  a  third  thing  in  the  universe,  to 
wit,  consciousness,  which,  in  the  hardness  of 
my  heart  or  head,  I  cannot  see  to  be  matter, 
or  force,  or  any  conceivable  modification  of 
either,  however  intimately  the  manifestations 
of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  may  be 
connected  with  the  phenomena  known  as 
matter  and  force.  In  the  second  place,  the 
arguments  used  by  Descartes  and  Berkeley 
to  show  that  our  certain  knowledge  does  not 
extend  beyond  our  states  of  consciousness, 
appear  to  me  to  be  as  irrefragable  now  as 
they  did  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with 


8  INTRODUCTION 

them     some     half-century     ago.      All     the 
materialistic  writers  I  know  of  who  have  tried 
to  bite  that  file  have  simply  broken  their 
teeth.     But  if  this  is  true,  our  one  certainty 
is  the  existence  of  the  mental  world,  and  that 
of  Kraft  und  Stoff  falls  into  the  rank  of,  at 
best,  a  highly  probably  hypothesis." 
With  this  short  introduction  I  leave  the  Huxley 
Lecturers  to  speak  for  themselves. 

OLIVER  LODGE. 
March,  1914. 


HUXLEY* 

By  Sir  Michael  Foster. 

Casting  round  for  a  theme  which  might  fitly 
be  the  subject  of  this  first  Huxley  Lecture  which 
the  University  of  Birmingham,  doing  me  great 
honour,  has  asked  me  to  deliver,  I  bethought  me 
of  the  wish  of  the  generous  founder  of  the  Lec- 
tures that,  if  possible,  this  first  lecture  should  be 
entrusted  to  some  one  who  knew  Huxley,  not  by 
his  writings  and  public  utterances  only,  but  in  a 
closer  way,  through  being  numbered  within  the 
happy  circle  of  his  inner  friends.  That  wish 
seemed  to  me  an  invitation  to  devote  this  first 
lecture  to  the  man  himself  and  his  work;  and,  not 
without  fear  and  trembling,  I  have  ventured  to 
guide  myself  by  such  an  invitation.  I  will  not 
attempt  to  dwell  on  any  details  of  his  life;  these 
can  be,  ought  to  be,  and  probably  are,  known  to 
you  all.  I  must  content  myself  with  some 
thoughts  about  his  ways,  his  views,  and  his  aims. 
As  I  go  along  I  can  only  touch  lightly,  and  in  a 
passing  way,  on  some  of  the  many  and  varied 
problems  which  are  started  by  the  consideration 
of  his  manifoldly  active  life;  these,  or  at  least 
many  of  them,  will  doubtless  be  fully  dealt  with 

*  Being  the  firit  "  Huxley  "  lecture  of  the  University  of 
Birmingham,  delivered  on  March  i6th,  1914. 


io   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

by  the  able  men  who  will  succeed  me  in  the  com- 
ing years.  Following  in  his  steps,  I  shall,  even 
at  the  risk  of  giving  offence,  try  to  speak  plainly 
and  straightforwardly  when  I  come  to  touch  on 
themes  with  which  he  dealt,  about  which  we  all 
feel  so  deeply. 

Every  one  in  this  world,  at  least  every  one  of 
whom  others  need  take  count,  has  a  dominant 
note.  If  I  ask  myself,  what  was  Huxley's 
dominant  note  ?  I  find  myself  answering  without 
hesitation — a  love  of  knowledge,  an  ever-present 
never-satisfied  desire  to  know.  There  are  many 
ways  of  knowing;  of  these  two  stand  out  as  dis- 
tinctive ways,  offering  a  contrast  the  one  to  the 
other.  One  way  of  knowing  lies  in  gathering  up, 
in  sweeping  into  the  mind,  all  the  grains  of 
information  which  happen  to  be  lying  around. 
This  is,  as  it  were,  the  greediness  of  multifarious 
knowledge, — conspicuous  in  the  child,  but  also 
common  in  the  adult;  it  is  that  yearning  to  know 
everything  that  is  going  on  which  is  the  main- 
spring of  daily  talk  and  makes  the  fortunes  of  the 
Press.  Such  a  greed  of  knowledge  Huxley 
possessed ;  such  a  way  of  knowing  he  followed  to 
a  remarkable  degree ;  nothing  touched  him,  noth- 
ing even  came  near  to  him  but  what  he  strove  to 
lay  hold  of  it.  And  he  found  such  profit  to  him- 
self in  this  kind  of  knowledge  that  he  laid  it 
down  as  an  axiom  of  education  that  every  one,  so 
far  as  possible,  should  be  led  towards  knowing 
something  of  everything. 


HUXLEY  ii 

Another  way  of  knowing  is,  when  a  thing  is  to 
be  known,  to  know  it  fully  and  exactly;  to  be 
aware  where  the  known  begins,  and  where  it  ends ; 
to  be  sure  and  clear  what  the  terms,  the  symbols 
used  in  the  knowledge,  really  mean  ;  to  have  the 
component  parts  of  each  bit  of  knowledge  so 
arranged  that  it  may  fitly  serve  as  the  instrument 
of  clear  and  exact  thinking.  This  is  the  kind  of 
knowledge  in  which  Huxley,  above  most  men, 
found  his  heart's  content.  We  know  from  his 
life  that  his  love  of  machinery  led  him  at  one  time 
to  wish  to  be  an  engineer.  What  fascinated  him 
in  a  machine  was  its  completeness  and  perfection, 
the  fitting  together  of  all  its  parts  to  a  common 
end,  the  feature  that,  if  well  and  truly  made,  it 
could  at  any  time  without  harm  be  taken  to  pieces 
and  put  together  again.  He  demanded  that,  so 
far  as  possible,  each  piece  of  knowledge  of  which 
he  had  to  make  use  should  have  the  complete- 
ness, the  perfection,  the  clean  fit  of  a  machine. 
With  such  exact  and  sharply  defined  knowledge 
alone  could  he  feel  that  he  was  thinking  clearly. 

Some  minds  there  are  which  find  a  charm  in 
indistinctness ;  impressionists  in  matters  of  know 
ledge,  truth  seems  to  them  to  have  the  greater 
charm  when  its  features  are  softened  by  a  sur- 
rounding mist  of  doubt  and  uncertainty;  placed 
before  them  in  sharp,  clear  outlines,  it  offends 
them  as  being  hard  and  crude.  It  was  not  so  with 
Huxley.  He  felt  as  fully  as  any  one  the  beauty 
born  of  dimness  which  rounds  off  with  softness 


12    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  features  of  the  far-off  horizon  where  the 
known  makes  clouds  out  of  the  unknown;  but  to 
him  that  beauty  belonged  to  that  far-off  horizon 
alone;  in  things  within  the  focus  of  intellectual 
vision  beauty  lay  in  clear  and  well-defined 
images;  whatever  came  before  him  with  its  out- 
lines blurred  by  imperfect  comprehension,  loose 
expression,  and  vague  presentation,  was  to  him 
something  ugly.  It  was  this  combination  of 
wide  and  varied  knowledge  with  a  love  of  exact 
and  rigorous  thinking  which  gave  to  him,  so  it 
seems  to  me,  his  worth  and  influence  as  a  man  of 
science.  Circumstances  led  him  to  find  a  sphere 
for  his  scientific  activity  in  that  branch  of  science 
which,  under  the  name  of  Comparative  Anatomy, 
or  Animal  Morphology,  deals  with  the  multi- 
farious forms  of  the  living  beings  which  we  call 
animals.  His  early  wish  had  been  to  become  an 
engineer,  busying  himself  with  machines;  turned 
away  from  this  by  fate,  he  had  wished  to  give 
himself  to  the  somewhat  allied  science  of  physi- 
ology, which  deals  with  animals  as  machines. 
But  this  also  was  not  to  be;  he  was  driven  to 
devote  himself  to  a  branch  of  science  which  was 
not  his  first  love,  and  for  which  he  was  in  some 
respects  less  fitted.  Any  lack  of  fitness,  however, 
which  there  might  have  been  was  soon  lost  sight 
of  amid  the  many  and  great  products  of  his 
labours. 

In  each  science  progress  appears  as  a  series  of 
steps,  each  step  being  marked  by  the  appearance 


HUXLEY  13 

of  some  work  of  prominent  worth,  the  intervals 
between  each  such  work  being  filled  up  with  the 
products  of  a  number  of  intermediate  less  signifi- 
cant labours  contributing  to  the  progress,  but  in  a 
less  effective  manner.  The  work  whose  appear- 
ance thus  marks  a  step,  whether  it  be  what  is 
called  a  discovery,  or  whether  it  be  the  setting 
forth  of  a  new  view  or  theory,  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  classic  work;  it  is  remembered,  and  referred 
to  afterwards  again  and  again,  while  the  less 
significant  labours  are  forgotten.  For  many 
years  Huxley  continued  to  produce  in  Compara- 
tive Anatomy,  including  Palaeontology,  for  to 
this  also  by  sheer  force  of  circumstances  he  was 
led  to  direct  his  attention,  works  which  are  en- 
rolled in  the  list  of  scientific  classics.  The  earlier 
of  these,  those  on  jelly  fish,  molluscs,  and  other 
oceanic  animal  forms,  were  done  as  almost 
apprentice  work,  done  while  he  was  as  yet  a  mere 
youngster,  serving  as  a  surgical  subaltern  on 
board  the  Rattlesnake  in  an  exploring  expedition 
to  the  Australian  seas.  These  and  the  rest  are 
to  be  found  in  the  four  large  volumes  of  scientific 
memoirs  which  his  publishers,  Messrs.  Macmillan, 
brought  out  as  their  contribution  to  the  memory 
of  his  name.  Of  the  many  memoirs  contained  in 
those  volumes  a  large  number  are  now  and  always 
will  be  spoken  of  as  classic  memoirs.  To  the 
man  of  science  those  volumes  alone  are  adequate 
proof  of  how  much  Huxley  did  to  push  forward 
the  science  among  the  followers  of  which  fate  had 
led  him  to  enrol  himself. 


i4    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

All  real  scientific  work  has  this  distinctive 
mark  :  it  is  reproductive  and  fertile,  it  gives  birth 
to  other  scientific  work  following  upon  itself,  and 
that  in  two  ways.  It  is  reproductive  in  the  way 
of  the  parentage  of  fact;  each  new  discovery  of 
real  worth  becomes  the  starting-point  of  new 
inquiries,  leading  in  turn  to  new  discoveries.  It 
is  also  reproductive  in  the  way  of  the  parentage 
of  spirit  and  of  method;  and  this  parentage  is, 
perhaps,  the  more  fertile  of  the  two.  The  new 
discovery,  the  new  fact  made  known,  the  new  view 
put  forward  and  commanding  assent,  is,  often  at 
least,  the  outcome  of  a  new  way  of  looking  at 
things;  and  that  new  way  of  looking  at  things 
spreads  among  those  who  are  working  at  the  same 
subject.  Again  and  again  the  appearance  of  a 
memoir  or  a  book  has  acted  like  a  magnet,  turn- 
ing men's  minds  from  looking  in  one  direction  and 
making  them  look  in  another.  Huxley's  work  in 
Comparative  Anatomy — or  perhaps  I  ought  to 
use  a  wider  phrase,  and  say  in  Biology — was  of 
the  reproductive  kind,  and  reproductive  especi- 
ally by  way  of  parentage  of  method. 

When  he  sailed  away  from  England  on  board 
the  Rattlesnake  much,  if  not  nearly  all,  the  work 
which  was  being  done,  and  for  many  years  past 
had  been  done,  in  England  at  least,  in  the  way  of 
enlarging  our  knowledge  of  animal  forms,  con- 
sisted, on  the  one  hand,  in  the  careful  but  dull 
accumulation  of  facts,  unillumined  by  any  thought 
as  to  what  was  the  real  meaning  of  the  facts  so 


HUXLEY  15 

industriously  gathered  together ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  the  putting  forward  of  nebulous  and  fan- 
tastic theories  as  to  that  meaning,  theories  not 
springing  out  of  the  consideration  of  the  facts 
themselves,  but  coming  from  elsewhere,  the  off- 
spring of  foreign  ideas,  thrust  into  the  facts  from 
the  outside.  Huxley's  mind,  with  its  clear  and 
exact  way  of  thinking,  with  its  tendency  to  look 
upon  a  machine  as  a  model  of  excellence,  rebelled 
at  the  very  outset  against  these  vague  and  mystic 
theories,  the  hybrid  products,  it  seemed  to  him, 
of  careful  observation  and  loose  thinking.  He 
strove  to  replace  them  by  ideas  more  justly 
deserving  to  be  spoken  of  as  scientific.  He  saw 
how  in  the  sister  physical  sciences  progress  con- 
sisted in  the  marshalling  of  facts  under  laws  the 
knowledge  of  which  came  through  observation 
and  experiment,  and  which  indeed  were  but  the 
expression  of  elaborated  observation;  and  he  set 
himself  to  the  task  of  making  the  same  fruitful 
method  dominant  in  biology.  The  very  first 
papers  which  he  sent  home  to  England  from  the 
far-off  Southern  Seas  not  only  added  largely  to 
new  knowledge,  but  served  as  striking  lessons  in 
the  new  way  of  attacking  biological  problems; 
these  were  in  turn  followed  by  others,  all  exempli- 
fying the  value  of  the  new  method;  and  though 
the  older  men  were  in  two  minds  about  them,  dis- 
liking the  new  ideas  but  admiring  the  ability  with 
which  they  were  put  forward,  the  younger  men 
received  them  gladly  and  at  once.  Under  Hux- 


16    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

ley's  lead  a  new  school  of  biological  inquiry  came 
into  being.     Thus  from  the  very  beginning  of  his 
career,  by  mere  force  of  his  efforts  to  get  for  him- 
self a  clear  view  of  the  things  with  which  he  had 
to  deal,  to  gain  a  firm  ground  from  which  he  could 
push  forward  into  the  unknown,  Huxley,  without 
thought  of  others,  became  a  teacher  of  inquirers. 
But  he  could  not  do  without  thinking  of  others. 
To  his  strong  desire  to  know  fully,  and  to  think 
clearly  for  himself,  there  was  added  a  no  less 
strong  desire  that  others  also  should  know  fully 
and  should  think  clearly.     Not  content,  as  he  well 
might    have    been,    with    being    a    teacher    by 
example,  he,  very  soon  after  his  return  to  Eng- 
land, became  a  teacher  by  precept.     While  some 
of  us  of  the  biological  craft  are  painfully  aware 
of  how  much  science  would  have  gained  had  the 
stream  of  energy  which  later  on  spread  over  such 
wide  fields  been  kept  in  its  earlier  and  narrower 
channel,  we  must  admit  that  the  world  at  large 
would  thereby  have  been  greatly  a  loser.     Hux- 
ley became  a  teacher  by  precept,  set  himself  to 
the  task  of  bettering  the  way  in  which  men  should 
be  taught.     He  began,  naturally  began,  with  the 
teaching  of  what  I  may  call  the  professional  few, 
with  the  training  of  those  who  enter  upon  the 
study  of  science,  knowing  that  a  knowledge  of 
science    must   be,    in    one    way   or    another,    an 
important  factor  in  their  future  life;  but  he  very 
soon  passed  on  to  the  wider  task  of  teaching  the 
general  many.     In  both  these  kinds  of  teaching 


HUXLEY  17 

he  held  fast  to  the  conception  which  had  guided 
him  in  his  own  intellectual  development,  and 
which  he  formulated  in  the  saying  that  the  goal  of 
teaching,  that  to  which  the  face  should  be  turned, 
though  it  might  not  be  reached,  should  be  to  make 
the  learner  know  something  of  everything  and 
everything  of  something.  The  one  stimulated 
intellectual  appetite  and  awakened  the  innate 
capacities  and  tendencies  of  the  mind,  while  at 
the  same  time  it  secured  a  broad  basis  on  which 
to  build.  The  other  furnished  the  only  means  of 
developing  that  power  of  clear  and  exact  think- 
ing which  was  the  main  end  of  teaching,  since 
every  teaching  which  failed  to  secure  this  was  in 
vain,  and  was  potent  in  the  measure  that  it  did 
secure  it.  This  view  of  the  need  of  an  effort  to 
secure  at  one  and  the  same  time  breadth  and 
exactitude  he  carried  into  his  teaching  of  science. 
This  is  seen  clearly  in  the  mode  of  teaching 
biology  which  he  advocated. 

The  science  of  biology  is  split  up  into  several 
parts.  There  are  beings  whose  characters  lead 
us  to  call  them  animals  and  others  which  we  call 
plants,  and  the  differences  between  the  two  are 
many  and  great.  A  living  being,  again,  be  it 
plant  or  animal,  on  the  one  hand,  presents 
phenomena  of  form  which  have  to  be  studied  in 
a  particular  way,  and  so  furnish  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  science  of  anatomy  or  morphology. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  presents  phenomena  of 
action,  of  function,  which  have  to  be  studied  in 


i8    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

another  way,  and  which  furnish  the  subject-matter 
of  the  science  of  physiology.  Further,  every 
living  being  may  be  studied  from  the  point  of 
view  of  how  it  came  to  be,  how  it  is  related  to  other 
beings,  and  what  part  it  plays  in  the  general 
economy  of  nature.  Biology  is  thus  split  up  into 
several  branches,  several  more  or  less  inde- 
pendent sciences,  and  the  man  who  looks  forward 
to  advancing  knowledge  in  any  one  of  them  finds, 
and  finds  increasingly  as  knowledge  advances, 
that  he  must  narrow  his  efforts  to  one  of  them, 
or  even  to  a  part,  perhaps  a  small  part,  of  that. 
And  the  temptation  is  natural  and  strong  for  the 
learner  to  turn  to  the  narrowing  early,  even  per- 
haps at  the  beginning,  pursuing  his  narrow  path 
from  the  outset  in  ignorance  of  what  is  going  on 
around  him.  Yet  these  several  sciences,  these 
several  branches  of  biology,  are  not  really  and 
wholly  independent :  they  touch  each  other,  here 
and  there,  again  and  again.  Hence  Huxley — 
and  all  of  us,  I  venture  to  think,  will  agree  that 
he  was  right — maintained  that,  necessary  as  it 
may  be  for  the  student  to  narrow  his  outlook 
when  he  is  well  on  his  way,  he  will  work  all  the 
more  fruitfully,  gaining  results  of  all  the  higher 
value  if,  before  passing  through  the  straight  gate 
to  his  ultimate  narrow  path,  he  gets  to  know  what 
other  paths  there  are,  what  are  their  features,  and 
whither  they  lead.  Hence  he  introduced  a  teach- 
ing of  biology,  in  which  as  many  as  possible  of  all 
kinds  of  biological  problems,  and  not  one  kind 


HUXLEY  19 

only,  should  be  presented  to  the  student.  In  that 
way  he  looked  to  get  a  breadth  which  could  not 
otherwise  be  gained.  Exactitude  he  trusted  to 
secure  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  striving  for 
breadth  by  the  method  of  teaching.  Selecting  a 
few  themes,  and  a  few  only,  from  the  several 
branches  of  biology,  and  these  so  far  as  possible 
of  an  elementary,  fundamental  character,  he 
strove  to  make  the  student  grasp  each  of  these  as 
fully  and  as  exactly  as  was  within  his  power.  And 
he  taught  through  the  eyes  as  well  as  through  the 
ears.  The  younger  generation  to-day  can  per- 
haps hardly  realise  to  what  an  extent,  thirty  or 
forty  years  ago,  in  science  teaching,  especially  in 
biological  teaching,  oral  exposition  and  the  read- 
ing of  books  still  supplied  the  dominant  means  of 
learning.  Biological  laboratories  were  then  only 
beginning  to  be.  Huxley  was  from  the  first  in- 
sistent that  a  firm  grasp,  an  exact  grip,  of  the 
phenomena  and  laws  of  nature  could  only  be 
gained  by  him  who  had  been  led  to  see  the  phe- 
nomena for  himself,  and  to  work  out  through 
observations  and  experiments  conducted  by  him- 
self the  problems  presented.  Arguments,  discus- 
sions, apt  illustrations,  lucid  exposition,  all  these 
were  needed  to  make  good  the  lesson;  but  they 
were  as  so  much  beating  the  air,  unless  they  dealt 
with  things  which  had  been  really  seen  and  actu- 
ally handled. 

It  was  not  in  the  teaching  of  biological  science 
alone  that  he  urged  this  marriage  of  breadth  with 


20    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

exactitude;  he  advocated  it  as  the  proper  mode 
of  training  for  every  kind  of  career.  Begin  with 
a  broad  basis,  with  a  basis  as  broad  as  the  mental 
power  of  the  student  can  compass,  but  even  in 
laying  down  the  basis  hold  fast  to  exactitude. 
Breadth  without  the  clearness  and  firmness  which 
comes  from  direct  sight  and  exact  thought  merely 
breeds  mental  flabbiness,  a  treacherous  basis  to 
build  on.  Some  minds  cannot  spread  themselves 
over  a  large  field  without  losing  touch  with  the 
exact  and  the  real ;  don't  attempt  to  stretch  such 
minds  too  much;  in  the  case  of  these  be  content 
with  a  basis  of  smaller  area.  Having  laid  a 
foundation  as  broad  as  the  mind  of  the  learner 
will  allow,  a  foundation  of  simple  elementary 
truths,  build  on  this  the  teaching  of  higher,  more 
difficult  matters.  As  you  ascend  you  will  find 
that,  in  order  to  secure  that  full  comprehension, 
that  exact  and  clear  thought  which  you  aim  to 
secure,  the  limits  of  mental  power  will  compel 
you  continually  to  narrow  the  range.  Be  not  dis- 
heartened at  this.  Knowing  that  you  have  the 
broad  basis  below,  do  not  fear  to  narrow  the  range 
as  you  raise  tier  on  tier  so  long  as  the  demands  of 
exactitude  call  for  it.  As  you  ascend  do  not 
spoil  the  compactness  of  your  product  by  attempt- 
ing to  put  wide,  loose  wrappings  round  the  solid 
core.  Be  .content  that  the  product  of  your  teach- 
ing should  be  a  cone,  such  as  may  be  used  as  an 
intellectual  missile,  penetrating  because  its  point 
is  narrow,  effective  because  its  base  is  broad. 


HUXLEY  21 

Such,  in  broad  outlines,  seem  to  me  to  have 
been  Huxley's  views  as  to  the  right  teaching  of 
the  professional  few.  But  in  this  matter  of  teach- 
ing his  heart  went  out,  beyond  the  limited  circles 
of  professions,  to  the  great  "  general  many."  He 
put  his  hand  to  the  work  of  rightly  teaching  these 
also. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  in  his  whole  career  is  more 
striking  than  his  coming  out  in  1870  from  the  tent 
of  the  Professor  to  take  his  part  in  the  popular 
battles  of  the  London  School  Board.  Never, 
perhaps,  was  he  busier  than  he  was  at  this  time ; 
his  hands  were  full  with  scientific  research  and 
scientific  teaching;  they  were  full  with  scientific 
administration.  Yet  he  knew  that  he  had  some- 
thing to  say  about  the  teaching  of  the  people;  he 
refused  to  keep  for  the  sect  of  science  that  which 
he  felt  was  meant  for  mankind,  and  came  forward 
to  take  his  part  in  what  he  believed  to  be  a  task 
of  great  moment.  He  did  not  shrink  from  enter- 
ing upon  that  which  is,  perhaps  in  many  ways, 
most  foreign  to  a  scientific  career,  a  popular  con- 
test; for,  though  few  could  appraise  more  truly 
than  he  the  value  of  the  thought  of  the  few  who 
know,  none  were  more  ready  than  he  to  accept  the 
judgment  of  the  many  who  feel.  And  the  elec- 
tors returned  to  him  the  confidence  which  he  had 
placed  in  them. 

He  carried  into  the  School  Board  the  same 
views  as  to  right  teaching  which  had  guided  him 
in  the  academic  lecture-room  and  in  the  labora- 


22    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

tory,  though  the  difference  in  the  subject  matter 
and  the  occasion  made  a  difference  in  the  form  in 
which  these  were  put  forward.  In  the  academic 
lecture-room  the  professional  student  is  taught  in 
part  only;  he  comes  to  it  already  fashioned  in 
part.  In  the  school  the  child  has  to  be  taught 
wholly  and  from  the  beginning ;  his  whole  nature 
is  placed  in  the  teacher's  hands.  Yet  the  right 
method  of  teaching  is  in  both  cases  at  bottom  the 
same.  Throughout  Huxley's  system  of  profes- 
sional teaching,  which  I  have  attempted  to  de- 
scribe, the  effort  to  combine  breadth  of  view  with 
clearness  and  exactitude  of  insight,  there  ran  the 
fundamental  idea  that  the  real  goal  of  profes- 
sional teaching  is  not  to  fill  the  head  with  stores 
of  knowledge,  however  accurate,  however  well 
adapted  for  professional  use,  but  to  lay  the 
foundations  of,  and  to  develop  as  far  as  possible, 
all  those  qualities  which  go  to  make  up  the  effec- 
tive scientific  professional  character.  And  the 
goal  of  school  teaching  which  Huxley  put  before 
him  was  the  development  of  the  whole  nature,  the 
building  up  of  a  fit  character  in  the  schoolboy  or 
schoolgirl.  If  in  professional  teaching  it  was 
needful  to  keep  this  goal  steadily  in  view,  it  was, 
in  his  eyes,  a  thousand  times  more  needful  to  keep 
it  in  view  at  the  school  in  the  few,  but  pregnant, 
years  during  which  the  lad  or  lass  comes  under 
the  moulding  hands  of  the  teacher.  In  the 
school,  above  all  other  places,  everything  should 
be  made  subservient  to  this  great  end. 


HUXLEY  23 

The  striving  for  this  goal  may  be  seen  in  all 
Huxley's  School  Board  work.  As  I  shall  shortly 
have  occasion  to  insist,  he  refused  to  split  up 
human  nature  into  this  and  that  part — physical, 
intellectual,  moral — to  be  treated  apart  in  dif- 
ferent ways.  To  him  human  nature  was  one  and 
indivisible,  to  be  treated  in  all  its  parts  according 
to  the  same  fundamental  method.  Hence  his 
advocacy  of  physical  training,  not  as  a  mere\ 
appendage  to,  but  as  an  essential  part  of,  school 
work.  In  the  narrower  training  of  the  grown-up, 
or  nearly  grown-up,  biological  student  he  laid  no 
little  stress  on  physical  training,  the  training  of 
the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  hand;  for,  the  clearer 
the  sight,  the  sharper  the  hearing,  and  the  readier 
the  touch,  the  greater  the  firmness  with  which  the 
student  can  lay  hold  of  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
the  more  surely  he  can  gain  the  basis  needed  for 
exactitude  of  thought  and  judgment.  In  the 
broader  training  of  the  growing  child,  physical 
training  seemed  to  him  to  be  one  of  the  first  of 
needs,  not  for  the  sake  only  of  what  some  call  the 
body,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  whole  child. 

The  same  desire  to  reach  character  guided  him 
in  his  selection  of  subjects  to  be  taught  and  of 
methods  of  school  teaching.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  primary  object  of  all  teaching  of  the 
young  must  be  to  awaken  the  mind,  to  rouse  the 
attention,  to  excite  the  desire  to  know  more.  And 
though  he  knew  that  a  good  teacher  has  the  power 
to  accomplish  this,  whatever  be  the  subject  which 


24    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

he  handles,  while  a  bad  teacher  may  fail  to  do 
this  with  any  subject,  he  sought  for  a  basis  of  early 
education  in  the  subjects  likely  of  themselves, 
without  taxing  the  teacher,  to  interest  the  scholars 
and  stimulate  them  to  mental  effort.  These  he 
found  in  common  things,  in  things  with  which  the 
children  came  into  touch,  things  of  which  they 
heard,  things  which  they  might  use  in  daily  life. 
He  gave  what  is  sometimes  called  useful  know- 
ledge a  large  share  in  school  life,  not  simply  be- 
cause it  was  useful,  though  this  he  did  not  despise, 
but  because  it  offered  the  best  opportunities  for 
awakening  the  young  mind  and  at  the  same  time 
could  be  so  taught  as  to  provide  the  desired  disci- 
pline and  training  of  the  mind  thus  awakened. 

It  was  this  earnest  wish  of  his  to  make  the 
school  the  means  of  moulding  the  whole  charac- 
ter, and  not  of  developing  this  or  that  part  of  it  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest,  that  led  him  to  take  a  step 
which  has  been  much  criticised,  and,  if  I  may 
venture  to  say  so,  much  misunderstood — to  advo- 
cate the  use  of  the  Bible  as  part  of  the  common 
school-lessons  in  the  School  Board  schools.  Of 
nothing  was  he  more  sure  than  this,  that  that 
schoolmaster  fell  short  of  his  high  calling  who 
failed  to  guide  his  pupils  to  know  the  right  from 
the  wrong,  and  to  follow  the  former  in  every- 
thing, not  only  in  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
in  history,  geography,  and  the  other  kinds  of 
knowledge  which  he  and  they  handled,  but  also 
and  no  less  so  in  the  treatment  of  the  body  and 


HUXLEY  25 

in  the  conduct  of  life.  The  character  which  the 
school  had  to  build  up  could,  in  his  view,  be  noth- 
ing more  than  a  broken  fragment,  a  fragment 
whose  broken  edges  were  dangerous  if,  in  attempt- 
ing to  build  it  up,  the  moral  phenomena  and  the 
moral  laws  of  the  universe  were  wholly  left  out  of 
sight. 

But  in  seeking  for  a  teaching  which  should  thus 
build  up  the  whole  character  he  was  met  by  a 
great  difficulty.  He  himself  had  long  been  con- 
vinced that  the  conduct  of  life  might  be  guided 
by  a  morality  and  inspired  by  a  religion  having 
no  part  whatever  in  the  theological  doctrines  of 
any  Church,  whether  Roman,  Anglican,  or  any 
other.  His  own  life  had  been  guided  by  that 
morality  and  inspired  by  that  religion.  He  be- 
lieved that  those  who  thought  with  him  on  this 
matter  were  increasing  in  numbers  everywhere 
and  would  in  the  end  become  dominant.  At  the 
same  time  he  recognised  that  in  the  face  of  the 
prevailing  influence  of  the  several  forms  of  the 
Christian  Church,  and  in  the  presence  of  powerful 
traditions,  inwrought  into  the  very  national  life, 
to  teach  such  a  morality  and  such  religion  in  the 
common  school  called  for  teachers  possessing 
convictions  which  were  rare  and  powers  which 
were  still  rarer.  On  the  other  hand,  he  recognised 
in  the  Bible,  ingrained  into  the  lives  and  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  so  many,  a  most  potent  instrument 
for  inculcating  the  moral  lessons  which  he  desired 
to  see  inculcated  and  for  inspiring  the  moral 


26    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

aspirations  which  he  desired  to  see  inspired. 
With  its  beautiful  lauguage  and  its  old  associa- 
tions, it  seemed  to  him  a  means  of  awakening  the 
moral  sense  and  pointing  out  the  duty  of  man, 
such  as  he  could  not  find  elsewhere,  such  at  least 
as  he  could  not  wisely  put  on  one  side. 

He  was  well  aware  that  in  it  the  great  moral 
lessons  which  he  sought  to  enforce  were  closely 
wrapped  up  in  other  things,  were,  indeed,  con- 
veyed by  means  of  teachings,  many  of  which  he 
was  convinced  were  erroneous,  some  of  which  he 
held  to  be  mischievous.  But  he  thought  that  this 
difficulty  was  largely  met  by  the  decision  that  the 
Bible  was  to  be  taught  in  the  school  in  such  a  way 
as  to  be  free  from  dogma.  And,  weighing  one 
thing  against  the  other,  he  accepted  Biblical 
teaching  as  what  in  the  language  of  the  world  is 
called  a  practical  compromise.  He  was  the  more 
inclined  to  this  step  because  he  believed  and 
hoped  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  other  things. 
He  took  it  for  granted  that  this  Biblical  teaching 
would  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  laymen,  and 
moulded  by  the  thoughts  of  laymen.  Laymen 
would,  he  conceived,  be  more  and  more  drawn  to 
his  own  way  of  thinking,  and  out  of  the  teaching 
which  he  had  helped  to  institute  would  be  evolved 
another  simpler  ethical  teaching  free  from  all 
theological  conceptions.  He  failed  to  realise 
that  to  make  the  Bible  the  chosen  and  sole  means 
of  enforcing  moral  lessons  strengthened  the  ties 
binding  the  teaching  of  moral  duties  to  the  accept- 


HUXLEY  27 

ance  of  ideas  which  he  regarded  as  erroneous,  or 
even  mischievous.  He  failed  to  realise  how 
strongly  they  who  believe  the  whole  Bible  to  be 
the  word  of  God,  and  hold  its  teachings  to  be  the 
only  guide  of  life,  would  resent  bits  of  it  being 
used  to  enforce  moral  laws  of  human  invention, 
while  the  rest  of  it  was  ignored  or  disparaged. 

What  he  had  hoped  to  be  a  compromise  of 
peace  became,  even  in  his  time,  and  since  his 
death  has  still  more  become,  like  so  many  other 
practical  compromises,  a  mother  of  strife.  He 
did  not,  even  in  his  last  days,  repent  the  com- 
promise; since  through  it,  it  seemed  to  him, 
"  twenty  years  of  reasonably  good  primary  educa- 
tion had  been  secured."  But  he  did  not  regard  it 
as  final.  He  was  forced  to  admit  that  the  teach- 
ing of  the  duties  of  life  according  to  natural  or, 
as  it  is  sometimes  called,  secular  knowledge,  that 
which  he  believed  to  be  the  true  teaching  must 
stand  by  itself  alone  and  not  attempt  to  make  use 
of  any  other  kind  of  teaching.  It  was  clear  to 
him  that,  so  soon  as  it  could  be  brought  about, 
the  State  must  limit  itself  to  teaching  the  things 
which  belong  to  natural  knowledge  and  these 
only,  leaving  other  bodies  to  teach  other  things  in 
their  own  way,  offering  to  all  equal  opportunities, 
but  meddling  with  none  and  directly  favouring 
none.  He  avowed  his  conviction  that  "  the  prin- 
ciple of  strict  secularity  in  State  education  is 
sound  and  must  eventually  prevail." 

His  zeal  for  education  did  not  stop,  however,  at 


28    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

children,  or  at  young  men  and  women;  early  in 
life  he  began  to  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel  in 
the  great  task  of  educating  the  people,  of  teach- 
ing the  great  public  of  all  sorts  and  conditions, 
high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  the  main  truths  which 
in  his  opinion  ought  to  guide  them  in  the  conduct 
of  life ;  and  as  the  years  went  on  the  call  to  fulfil 
this  task  seemed  to  him  more  and  more  urgent. 
He  passed  from  the  chair  of  the  professor  to  the 
pulpit  of  the  preacher,  and  in  the  later  years  of 
his  life  gave  himself  up  almost  wholly  to  the  issue 
of  writings  which  he  himself  acknowledged  to  be 
of  the  kind  which  men  call  sermons.  Any 
attempt  to  describe  Huxley's  influence  on  his 
fellows  and  his  place  in  the  world  which  did  not 
give  ample  room  for  the  consideration  of  this  side 
of  his  life  and  this  direction  of  his  labours  would 
be  a  wholly  vain  one. 

Following  out  his  favourite  analogy  of  a 
machine,  he  recognised  in  man,  on  the  one  hand, 
a  moving  power,  or  rather  moving  powers,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  directive  agencies  by  which  the 
movements  set  going  by  the  power,  in  other 
words,  the  acts  of  man,  are  shaped  so  as  to  accom- 
plish this  and  that  end.  Early  in  life  he  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  these  directive  agen- 
cies were  to  be  found  in  knowledge,  in  natural 
knowledge,  and  in  this  alone.  He  was  convinced 
that  the  true  conduct  of  life  was  that  which  was 
in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature,  and  that  a 
knowledge  of  those  laws  could  alone  supply  a 


HUXLEY  29 

judgment,  the  more  trustworthy  the  fuller  the 
knowledge,  whether  this  or  that  act  was  in  accord 
with  those  laws  or  not,  and  so  whether  it  was 
right  or  wrong.  And  when  he  spoke  of  cc  right  ' 
and  "  wrong,"  he  meant  every  kind  of  right,  and 
every  kind  of  wrong. 

His  studies  in  biology  had  made  it  clear  to  him 
that  man  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  whole ;  that  in 
respect  to  none  of  his  acts,  whatever  be  their  kind, 
can  man's  nature  be  divided  into  two  halves,  in 
such  a  way  that  the  one  half  is  to  be  considered 
as  wholly  unlike  the  other  half,  to  be  viewed  from 
a  wholly  different  point  of  view  and  to  be  treated 
in  a  wholly  different  way.  Without  attempting 
to  say  what  body  was  or  what  mind  was,  he  in- 
sisted that  the  two  were  so  wed  together  that  no 
one  in  dealing  with  them  could  put  them  apart 
and  treat  each  as  if  it  stood  alone.  He  found  it 
freely  admitted  that  the  conduct  of  man's 
stomach,  however  much  it  had  been  in  earlier 
times,  and  indeed  still  was,  governed  by  the  im- 
pulses of  appetite,  and  by  the  results  of  rough 
experience  embodied  in  custom  and  authority, 
was  being  more  and  more  subjected  to  rules  based 
on  a  still  imperfect  but  rapidly  growing  know- 
ledge of  physiological  laws.  He  noted  that 
whenever  any  question  arose  as  to  what  the 
stomach  should  be  allowed,  or  be  made  to  do,  the 
final  appeal  was  to  physiology,  and  to  this  alone, 
the  health  and  happiness  of  the  stomach  being 
sought  for  in  obedience  to  physiological  laws,  and 


30    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

in  this  alone.  And  what  was  true  for  part  of  man 
he  claimed  to  be  true  for  the  whole  of  man. 
Man's  whole  nature,  and  not  simply  this  or  that 
part  of  it,  was  subject  to  natural  laws;  and  the 
welfare  of  the  whole,  no  less  than  of  each  part, 
was  to  be  sought  in  obedience  to  these  laws.  As 
the  path  to  so-called  physical  health  lay  in  the 
strenuous  search  after  physiological  laws,  and  in 
obeying  them  when  found,  so  the  path  to  moral 
and  social  health  lay  in  a  like  search  after  ethical 
and  social  laws  and  in  a  like  obedience  to  them 
when  found.  He  met  with  no  one  who  contended 
that  because  at  the  present  day  our  knowledge  of 
physiological  laws  is  fragmentary  and  halting  it 
is  to  be  set  aside  as  of  no  avail  for  the  conduct  of 
life  in  its  physical  aspects;  on  the  contrary,  he 
met  everywhere  with  urgent  demands  for  vigorous 
research,  prompted  by  the  sure  conviction  that  a 
fuller  knowledge  would  bring  to  us  the  means  of 
securing  a  more  wholesome  physical  life.  And 
he  argued  that  the  fact  of  our  knowledge  of 
ethical  and  social  laws  being  still  more  fragmen- 
tary and  halting  than  our  knowledge  of  physio- 
logical laws — so  fragmentary  and  so  halting, 
indeed,  that  the  ethical  and  social  knowledge  of 
to-day  might  be  compared  with  the  physiological 
knowledge  of  centuries  ago — was  no  valid  argu- 
ment for  refusing  to  accept  that  knowledge  as  the 
ultimate  guide  in  the  conduct  of  life.  On  the. 
contrary,  it  seemed  to  him  that  this  constituted 
the  very  reason  why  the  most  strenuous  efforts 


HUXLEY  31 

should  be  made  to  advance  that  knowledge  as 
rapidly  as  may  be. 

Natural  knowledge  was,  he  maintained,  the 
one  and  the  same  guide,  the  only  sure  guide  in 
the  quest  after  both  physical  and  moral  wel- 
fare. The  address  "  On  Improving  Natural 
Knowledge,"  which  was  delivered  nearly  half  a 
century  ago,  in  1866,  and  which  comes  first  in  the 
first  volume  of  his  collected  Addresses  and 
Essays,  and  is  the  key  to  all  which  follow,  sets 
forth  in  telling  words  his  conviction  that  what 
began  as  a  search  into  things  physical  has  become 
a  search  into  things  spiritual,  and  that  the  value 
of  natural  knowledge  lies  not  so  much  in  the 
mastery  which  it  has  given  over  the  forces  which 
determine  the  welfare  of  the  body  (valuable  as 
that  mastery  may  be)  as  in  the  mastery  which  it 
promises  over  the  forces  which  determine  the  wel- 
fare of  man  as  a  whole.  Natural  knowledge  was, 
he  said,  "  a  real  mother  of  mankind,  bringing 
them  up  with  kindness,  and,  if  need  be,  with  stern- 
ness in  the  way  they  should  go,  and  instructing 
them  in  all  things  needed  for  their  welfare." 

The  improvement  of  natural  knowledge,  whatever  direc- 
tion it  has  taken  and  however  low  the  aims  of  those  who 
may  have  commenced  it,  has  not  only  conferred  practical 
benefits  on  men,  but  in  so  doing  has  effected  a  revolution 
in  their  conceptions  of  the  universe  and  of  themselves,  and 
has  profoundly  altered  their  modes  of  thinking  and  their 
views  of  right  and  wrong.  I  say  that  natural  knowledge, 
seeking  to  satisfy  natural  wants,  has  found  the  ideas 
which  can  alone  still  spiritual  cravings.  I  say  that  natural 
knowledge,  in  desiring  to  ascertain  the  laws  of  comfort, 
has  been  driven  to  discover  those  of  conduct,  and  to  lay 
the  foundation  of  a  new  morality. 


32    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

Natural  knowledge,  moreover,  gave  man,  in 
his  opinion,  not  only  directive  agencies,  but  also 
moving  powers  for  the  conduct  of  life.  It  not 
only  laid  bare  the  laws  according  to  which  man 
must  walk,  but  also,  rightly  grasped,  raised  up 
visions  which  awakened  or  which  strengthened 
the  emotions  and  affections  needed  to  bear  man 
up  in  his  efforts  so  to  walk,  following  right  and 
shunning  wrong.  Love  of  good,  hatred  of  evil, 
feelings  of  awe  and  reverence,  such  as  must  ever 
arise  when  man  tries  to  pierce  below  the  surface 
of  things,  yearnings  for  and  strivings  towards  a 
goal  of  ideal  perfection,  nearness  to  which  is  the 
true  measure  of  real  happiness — these  seemed  to 
him  the  heart  of  every  true  religion  whatever 
might  be  its  doctrinal  wrappings.  Of  all  these 
he  believed  natural  knowledge  to  be,  and  in  the 
struggles  of  his  own  life  had  found  it  to  be,  a 
true,  potent,  and  yet  simple  nurse. 

He  knew  that  in  this  view  of  the  work  and 
power  of  natural  knowledge  he  was  looking 
ahead  ;  he  was  aware  how  little  had  as  yet  been 
achieved  in  the  improvement  of  natural  know- 
ledge, how  much  had  yet  to  be  done  before  that 
which  it  promised  could  be  accomplished.  But 
the  way  to  effective  truth  had  been  entered  upon, 
time  and  labour  only  were  needed  for  the  rest. 
Filled  as  he  was  with  this  dominant  conviction  of 
the  higher  power  of  natural  knowledge  and  of 
the  crying  need  for  the  advance  of  that  know- 
ledge, it  is  no  wonder  that  he  felt,  and  felt 


HUXLEY 


33 


strongly,  that  every  hindrance  of  man's  own  mak- 
ing to  that  advance  was  a  hindrance  to  man's 
social  and  moral  progress,  and  told  against  man's 
highest  welfare.  It  was  this  feeling  which 
brought  him  into  conflict  with  what  I  may  here 
venture  to  speak  of  collectively  as  the  Church. 
And  no  true  conception  of  Huxley's  life  can  be 
gained  unless  his  attitude  in  this  respect  be  clearly 
understood. 

He  distinguished  in  the  work  of  the  Church 
between  the  moving  power  and  the  directive 
agencies.  The  moving  power  may  be  found  in 
the  words,  love  and  fear  of  God,  hope  and  dread 
of  the  life  to  come.  The  dominant  emotion 
indicated  by  the  words  love  and  fear  of  God 
seemed  to  him,  when  carefully  examined,  to  be  in 
essence  identical  with  the  dominant  emotion 
which  he  recognised  as  the  moving  power  making 
for  man's  welfare,  which  had  been  the  moving 
power  of  his  own  life,  which  had  been  his  religion, 
and  which  he  spoke  of  as  love  of  good  and  of  truth 
and  fear  of  evil  and  of  lies.  Whether  the  good 
and  the  true  were  presented  in  a  personal  form,  or 
not  so  presented,  seemed  to  him  to  make  no  real 
difference  in  the  nature  of  the  emotion  itself;  and 
if,  on  the  one  hand,  it  might  seem  that  the 
emotion  was  intensified  when  sustained  by  a  per- 
sonal conception,  on  the  other  hand  it  might  be 
regarded  as  more  durable  and  constant  when  it 
stood  alone  and  was  not  in  any  way  contingent  on 
intellectual  conceptions.  Moreover,  so  it  seemed 


34   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

to  him  at  least,  as  man's  knowledge  grew  more 
and  more,  there  would  come  a  growing  potency 
of  that  other  accompanying  emotion  of  awe  and 
reverence  which  springs  from  the  increasing 
recognition  of  the  mystery  of  the  unknown  for 
ever  lying  beyond  the  farthermost  margin  of  the 
expanding  known. 

Towards  the  other  moving  power  of  the 
Church,  the  hope  and  dread  of  the  life  to  come, 
his  attitude  was  very  different.  These  words 
signified,  not  as  did  the  words  love  of  God,  a 
native  emotion  shaped,  not  created,  by  intel- 
lectual conceptions,  but  an  adventitious  emotion 
whose  very  birth  was  due  to  conceptions  in  which 
natural  knowledge  was  more  or  less  involved. 
To  him  natural  knowledge  brought  no  proof,  and 
could  bring  no  proof,  of  a  life  hereafter;  this 
could  neither  affirm  nor  deny  that  man  lived  after 
death.  He  fully  recognised  the  great  part  played 
in  the  conduct  of  life  by  the  hope  of  reward  and 
the  dread  of  punishment;  but  in  the  conduct  of 
life  according  to  natural  knowledge  both  the  hope 
and  the  dread  must  have  natural  knowledge  as 
their  base;  the  sequence  of  the  reward  or  of  the 
punishment  upon  the  deed  must  be  within  the 
reach  of  proof,  otherwise  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  could  be  of  avail.  The  hope  and  the  dread 
which  did  not  rest  on  proof  seemed  to  him  a 
broken  reed  not  to  be  trusted. 

Deep,  however,  as  was  his  conviction  that  the 
hope  of  future  reward  and  the  fear  of  future 


HUXLEY  35 

punishment  having  no  assured  basis  of  certain 
knowledge,  could  not  be  used  as  the  main  motive 
power  in  the  conduct  of  life  without  in  the  end 
doing  harm,  strongly  as  he  felt  that  to  go  further 
and  put  these  forward  as  the  necessary  and  indis- 
pensable instruments  in  the  moral  government  of 
the  world  was,  as  he  said  in  a  letter  to  Charles 
Kingsley,  "  a  mischievous  lie,"  this  was  not  the 
mainspring  of  that  continued  active  opposition  to 
the  Church  which  is  displayed  in  so  many  especi- 
ally of  his  later  writings.  That  opposition  was 
engendered  not  so  much  by  the  kind  of  moving 
power  put  forward  by  the  Church  as  by  the  direc- 
tive agencies  through  which  the  Church  strove  to 
make  that  moving  power  effective  for  the  conduct 
of  life. 

He,  as  I  have  said,  had  early  come  to  the  con- 
viction that  since  the  conduct  of  life,  of  moral  as 
well  as  physical  life,  must  be  guided  by  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws  of  nature  and  by  this  alone,  the 
welfare  of  mankind  hung  upon  the  continued 
progress  of  natural  knowledge,  through  which 
man  learnt  the  laws  which  he  must  obey  and  saw 
his  way  before  him.  But  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  Church  in  every  one  of  its  particular  forms,  in 
framing  rules  for  the  conduct  of  life,  now  to  a 
greater,  now  to  a  lesser  degree,  had  made  in  the 
past,  was  making  in  the  present,  and  would  make 
in  the  future,  use  of  an  appeal  to  a  something 
which,  under  the  name  of  authority,  inspiration, 
revelation,  was  not  only  no  part  of  natural  know- 


36   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

ledge,  but  gave  rise  to  teachings  which  might  be, 
and  often  were,  in  direct  contradiction  to  the 
teachings  of  natural  knowledge.  He  further 
found  that  when  such  contradiction  came  to  hand 
the  Church  demanded  that  natural  knowledge 
should  give  way.  This  was  the  origin  of  the 
active  opposition  of  which  I  am  speaking.  Quite 
early  in  his  career,  while  his  name  was  as  yet  but 
little  known  outside  the  narrow  circle  of  men  of 
science,  he  was  brought  face  to  face  with  this  atti- 
tude of  the  Church  by  the  way  in  which  so  many 
voices  of  the  Church  received  the  views  put  for- 
ward by  Charles  Darwin  in  his  Origin  of  Species. 
The  reception  which  that  book  met  with  entered 
like  iron  into  Huxley's  soul ;  he  never  forgot  it. 
Stirred  up  by  it,  he  was  swept  away  from  the 
quiet  retirement  of  scientific  inquiry,  the  results 
of  which  could  not  reach  the  larger  world  until 
after  many  days  and  then  mainly  through  the 
mouths  of  divers  interpreters;  he  was  carried 
forth  into  the  market-place  to  speak  directly  to 
the  people  and  become  before  them  the  untiring, 
fearless  champion  of  the  claims  of  natural  know- 
ledge. It  shaped  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Henceforward  he  to  a  large  extent  deserted 
scientific  research  and  forsook  the  joys  which  it 
might  bring  to  himself,  in  order  that  he  might 
secure  for  others  that  full  freedom  of  inquiry 
which  is  the  necessary  condition  for  the  advance 
of  natural  knowledge.  Here  was  a  book  which, 
with  a  quietness  born  of  the  consciousness  of 


HUXLEY  37 

strength,  made  known  the  conclusions  to  which 
the  author,  working  wholly  within  the  bounds  of 
natural  knowledge,  had  been  led  while  he  during 
long  years  patiently  gathered  observations  and  as 
patiently  meditated  during  long  years  on  what 
those  observations  meant.  Every  line  in  the 
book  dealt  with  natural  knowledge  and  with 
natural  knowledge  alone ;  the  whole  of  it  appealed 
to  natural  knowledge  as  the  only  judge  of  the 
validity  of  its  conclusions.  By  the  light  of 
natural  knowledge  Huxley  himself  tried  the 
book,  and,  though  aware  of  what  was  missing  in 
this  part  or  that,  accepted  the  main  contention  as 
proved,  and  in  accepting  it  threw  aside  views  to 
which  at  an  earlier  period  he  had  been  led. 
Others,  trying  the  book  also  by  the  light  of  natural 
knowledge,  found  it  in  their  opinion  wanting. 
With  these  Huxley  could  not  agree;  but,  though 
their  arguments  seemed  to  him  lacking  in  force, 
he  could  not  otherwise  find  fault  with  their  atti- 
tude. 

With  those  voices  of  the  Church  of  which  I 
have  spoken,  it  was  different.  These,  so  it 
seemed  to  Huxley,  rejected  the  conclusions  of  the 
book,  not  because  they  were  not  according  to 
natural  knowledge,  but  because  they  were,  or 
appeared  to  be,  in  contradiction  to  what  was,  or 
what  appeared  to  be,  the  teaching  of  the  Church. 
This,  he  thought,  was  the  real  reason  of  the 
opposition  which  so  many  of  the  Church  offered 
to  Charles  Darwin's  views ;  such  opponents  might 


38    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

arm  themselves  with  arguments  drawn  from 
natural  knowledge,  but  the  real  fight  which  they 
were  fighting  was,  in  his  opinion,  one  against  the 
validity  of  natural  knowledge  itself  when  in  con- 
flict with  the  authority  of  the  Church. 

To  this  conflict  Huxley  girded  himself  with  all 
his  might  on  the  side  of  natural  knowledge.  To 
understand  his  attitude  it  must  be  remembered 
how  strong,  as  I  have  already  said,  was  his  con- 
viction that  natural  knowledge  and  natural  know- 
ledge alone  is  to  be  trusted  as  the  ultimate  guide 
of  man  in  the  conduct  of  life.  The  efficacy  of 
the  guidance  must  be  measured  by  the  fulness  of 
the  knowledge;  and  Huxley's  knowledge  was 
great  enough  to  make  him  see  how  imperfect  was 
natural  knowledge  in  its  present  stage  when 
called  upon  to  rule  the  conduct  of  even  physical 
life,  and  how  infinitely  more  imperfect  when 
appealed  to  as  a  guide  of  the  conduct  of  moral, 
social  life.  The  welfare  of  mankind  was,  in  his 
eyes,  indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  advance,  the 
steady,  nay,  the  rapid  advance  of  natural  know- 
ledge. Any  hindrance  to  that  advance  was,  to 
his  mind,  a  wrong  to  mankind.  What  hindrance 
could  be  more  hurtful  than  the  contention  that 
natural  knowledge  was  not  master  of  its  own 
domain,  but  must  bow  its  head  and  keep  silence 
when  even  in  its  own  field  it  came  into  conflict 
with  the  master  of  another  land?  The  call  to 
strive  for  the  doing  away  of  that  hindrance  rang 
loud  in  Huxley's  ears. 


HUXLEY  39 

It  was  in  his  view  of  some  importance,  it  was  of 
perhaps  of  great  importance,  that  Charles  Dar- 
win's conclusions  should  be  generally  accepted  as 
solid  contributions  to  natural  knowledge,  in  order 
to  increase  their  fruitfulness  for  the  further 
advance  of  that  knowledge;  and  we  to-day  can 
recognise  how  fruitful  they  have  proved.  Still 
more  important  was  it  in  his  opinion  that  these 
conclusions  should  be  judged  as  to  their 
validity  by  an  appeal  to  natural  knowledge, 
and  to  that  alone,  and  not  by  an  appeal 
to  another  tribunal.  The  reception  of  Charles 
Darwin's  book  was  to  him  only  an  instance, 
was  only  one  of  many  signs,  of  an  abid- 
ing antagonism.  The  same  thing  had  happened 
again  and  again  in  the  past,  it  must  be  looked  for 
again  and  again  in  the  future;  the  fight  will 
always  be  going  on.  His  attitude  was  not 
changed  on  hearing  other  voices  of  the  Church 
declare  that  the  origin  of  species,  including  that 
of  the  human  species,  by  selection,  was  not 
destructive  to  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  was  in  accordance  with  it,  and  indeed 
had  in  a  way  been  anticipated  by  it.  He  was  glad 
that  one  cause  of  quarrel  was  out  of  the  way ;  but 
he  felt  that  even  with  these  voices  the  potential 
cause  of  quarrel  still  held  its  ground.  They 
now  approved  of  Darwin's  views ;  but  would  they 
approve  of  the  next  great  result  gained  by  some 
student  of  natural  knowledge  in  even  the  near 
future  should  this  seem  to  them  to  conflict  with 


40    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  teaching  of  the  Church?  If  they  found  that 
it  did  conflict,  would  not  they  also  then  join  in 
denouncing  it?  He  had  no  doubt  but  what  they 
would.  He  was  convinced  that  the  antagonism 
was  a  fundamental  one.  It  was  one  moreover 
which  he  seemed  to  meet  with  everywhere. 

I  had  set  out  [says  he]  on  a  journey  with  no  other  pur- 
pose than  that  of  exploring-  a  certain  province  of  natural 
knowledge ;  I  strayed  no  hair's  breadth  from  the  course 
which  it  was  my  right  and  my  duty  to  pursue ;  and  yet  I 
found  that,  whatever  route  I  took,  before  long  I  came  to 
a  tall  and  formidable-looking  fence.  .  .  .  The  only  alter- 
natives were  either  to  give  up  my  journey — which  I  was 
not  minded  to  do — or  to  break  the  fence  down  and  go 
through  it.* 

And  especially  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life 
he  set  himself  vigorously  to  the  task  of  breaking 
down  fences. 

The  Church,  he  said  to  himself,  whenever  it 
sees  fit,  opposes  natural  knowledge;  in  the  ser- 
vice of  my  sovereign  lord,  natural  knowledge,  it 
is  my  duty  to  oppose  the  Church.  I  am  not  going 
out  of  my  way  in  doing  this ;  it  lies  straight  before 
me  in  my  path.  He  went  on  the  way  which  he 
had  set  before  him,  well  knowing  that  in  so  doing 
he  gave  great  offence.  To  many  a  quiet  Christian 
heart  he  brought  much  pain,  handling,  as  he  did, 
themes  which  to  them  were  indissolubly  joined  to 
their  inmost  feelings  of  reverence,  with  the  free 
manner  of  a  fighter  who  flashes  in  his  sword 
wherever  he  sees  an  opening  to  do  his 

*  Collected  Essays,  V.,  Pref.  p.  vii. 


HUXLEY  41 

opponent  harm.  To  those  who  blame  him  for 
this  the  reply  may  be  given  that  the  greater  the 
reverence  resting  on  what  he  was  convinced  was 
a  false  foundation,  the  more  pressing  seemed  to 
him  the  duty  to  show  the  falseness  of  the  founda- 
tion in  the  clearest,  most  direct  way,  such  as  could 
be  understood  by  all.  Moreover,  the  manner  in 
which  he  used  his  weapons  in  this  matter  was  in 
no  wise  different  from  his  usual  manner  on  other 
occasions.  He  was  by  temperament  "  ever  a 
fighter " ;  in  his  combats  within  the  realms  of 
natural  knowledge,  and  these  were  not  a  few,  he 
hit  quick  and  he  hit  hard,  for  such  was  his  way  of 
fighting. 

Many  of  his  friends,  who,  like  him,  put  their 
trust  in  natural  knowledge,  reproached  him  with 
spending  his  strength  in  warfare  of  such  a  kind. 
The  surest  way  to  make  natural  knowledge  pre- 
vail, they  said,  is  to  extend  its  boundaries;  as  it 
advances  other  things  must  give  way  before  it. 
Was  it  not  a  misdirection  of  energy  that  he  who 
in  past  years  had  shown  such  power  and  done  so 
much  to  drive  farther  and  farther  off  the  line 
which  parts  the  known  from  the  unknown,  should 
spend  time  and  labour  in  controversies  which  in 
themselves  brought  no  clear  advancement  of 
natural  knowledge,  and  in  conducting  which  he 
could  make  little  use  of  that  wealth  of  natural 
knowledge  which  he  already  possessed,  and  had, 
with  tireless  labour,  to  seek  the  arguments  which 
he  used  in  unaccustomed  antiquarian  and  lingu- 
istic studies  ? 


42    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

He  thought  otherwise.  He  was  convinced,  and 
increasingly  convinced  as  years  went  on,  that 
natural  knowledge  could  not  go  on  to  that  fuller 
development  which  was  needed  to  make  it 
accepted  as  the  true  guide  in  the  whole  conduct 
of  life,  so  long  as  men  in  general  still  believed 
that  as  regards  parts  of  that  conduct  the  only  true 
guide  was  to  be  found  in  the  teachings  of  the 
Church  and  in  these  alone.  He  had  no  doubt 
whatever  that  for  the  adequate  progress  of  natural 
knowledge  some  one  must  be  bold  enough  to 
stand  up  against  the  Church  whenever  it  said  to 
natural  knowledge,  "  thus  far  but  no  farther," 
bold  enough  to  show  the  world  that  the  Church's 
claim  to  dictate  to  natural  knowledge  broke  down 
when  it  was  tried  without  fear  and  without  preju- 
dice. Seeing  none  other  bold  enough,  he  took 
the  task  upon  himself.  Whether  he  was  right  or 
wrong,  the  world  must  judge. 

He  is  gone;  but  the  conflict,  in  which  so  much 
of  his  life  was  spent,  still  remains  with  us. 
Among  the  followers  of  natural  knowledge,  both 
the  workers  and  they  who  only  know  its  ways, 
there  are  and  always  will  be  they  who  hold  that 
natural  knowledge  is  not  merely  a  hewer  of  wood 
and  a  drawer  of  water,  a  provider  of  physical 
health  and  material  benefits,  but  beyond  that  the 
only  sure  guide  to  moral  health  and  spiritual  well- 
being,  who  hold  that  man  can  only  safely  direct 
his  steps  by  frank  obedience  to  the  known  laws  of 
nature,  the  more  safely  the  better  and  the  more 


HUXLEY  43 

fully  these  laws  are  known.  Such  are  well  aware 
that  the  always  increasing,  but  ever  limited 
known  is  wrapped  round  on  all  sides  with  a 
boundless  unknown.  Peering  from  time  to  time 
into  that  dark  unknown  they  may  people  its 
depths  with  fancies ;  but  they  leave  those  fancies 
there  when  they  turn  back  to  their  daily  task  in 
the  clear  light  of  the  known.  Yet  the  feelings  of 
wonder  and  awe  with  which  that  vast  unknown 
must  always  fill  them  will  abide  with  them, 
chastening  and  humbling  them,  ennobling  their 
daily  task  and  fitting  them  the  better  to  perform 
it.  Borne  up  by  such  feelings  Huxley  lived  and 
worked. 

MICHAEL  FOSTER. 


45 


*HUXLEY  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION 
By  Prof.  E.  B.  Poulton,  F.R.S. 

On  March  23,  Prof.  E.  B.  Poulton,  F.R.S., 
delivered  the  Huxley  Lecture  at  Birmingham. 
He  said  the  attitude  of  Huxley  toward  natural 
selection  was  remarkable  and  unusual.  Although 
no  one  fought  so  nobly,  and  against  such  odds  in 
its  favour,  although  no  one  had  ever  fought  the 
battle  of  science  with  such  success,  [Huxley  was 
never  a  convinced  believer  in  the  theory  he  de- 
fended from  unfair  attack.^  At  least  one  cause  of 
that  want  of  confidence  he  (the  lecturer)  believed 
to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  his  researches,  deter- 
mined by  the  bent  of  nature,  were  anatomical  and 
palseontological  rather  than  the  study  of  the 
living  organism  in  relation  to  its  environment, 
and  especially  its  living  environment.  The 
origin  and  growth  of  the  theory  and  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  was  made  public  had  often 
been  told.  Darwin,  convinced  of  evolution  by 
reflection  upon  his  observations  in  South  America 
during  the  voyage  of  the  "Beagle"  (1831-36), 
began  in  July,  1837,  systematically  to  collect 
facts  bearing  upon  the  modification  of  species  and 
its  causes.  In  October  of  the  following  year  he 
read  Malthus  "  On  Population,"  and  the  idea  of 
natural  selection  at  once  dawned  on  his  mind. 

* 'Revised  from  the  ^Scientific  American"  Supplement,  Vol.  59, 

p.  24515-16,  April  IQOS. 
In  full  in  "  Essays  on  Evolution,"  Oxford,  1858,  pp.  193-219. 


46    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

In  June,  1842,  he  wrote  a  brief  account  of  the 
theory,  and  two  years  later  an  essay;  but  he  could 
not  be  induced  to  publish  until,  on  June  18,  1858, 
almost  exactly  twenty  years  after  the  conception 
first  came  to  him,  he  received  a  manuscript  essay 
written  by  A.  R.  Wallace  in  the  Moluccas  "  On 
the  Tendency  of  Varieties  to  Depart  Indefinitely 
from  the  Original  Type."  Darwin  placed  him- 
self in  the  hands  of  his  friends  Lyell  and  Hooker, 
who  asked  for  an  abstract  of  his  own  work,  and 
presented  it,  with  Wallace's  essay,  to  the  Linnean 
Society  on  July  i,  1858.  Now  that  we  knew  the 
circumstances  under  which  Wallace  wrote  his 
essay,  the  coincidence  was  far  more  striking.  He 
also  was  convinced  of  evolution,  and  had  written 
a  powerful  paper  in  support  of  it.  But  he  knew 
of  no  motive  cause  until,  in  February,  1858,  lying 
ill  of  fever  in  Ternate,  he  began  to  think  of 
Malthus's  book,  and  the  idea  of  natural  selection 
instantly  flashed  across  his  mind  He  did  not 
wait  twenty  years.  In  two  hours  he  had  thought 
out  almost  the  whole  of  the  theory,  in  three  even- 
ings he  had  finished  it,  and  sent  it  to  Darwin. 
Thus  on  July  i,  1858,  when  Darwin  was  nearly 
fifty  and  Huxley  just  over  thirty-three,  the  great 
theory  was  before  the  world,  and  the  most  striking 
thing  about  Huxley  in  relation  to  it  was  the  fact 
that  he  knew  nothing  about  it.  Almost  exactly 
a  year  after  the  appearance  of  the  paper,  on  June 
25,  1859,  he  wrote  to  Lyell  in  favour  of  the  trans- 
mutation of  species,  but  against  the  idea  of 


NATURAL    SELECTION  47 

transition  between  species.  The  letter  showed 
that  he  had  no  notion  of  natural  selection,  but 
only  of  changes  wrought  by  external  conditions, 
changes  sudden  and  sharply  marked  off,  like  those 
which  follow  the  replacement  of  one  chemical 
element  by  another  in  a  compound — to  use  his 
own  metaphor.  '  The  Origin  of  Species  "  was 
published  in  November,  1859,  and  an  advance 
copy  was  sent  by  Darwin  to  Huxley.  In  his 
chapter  on  the  reception  of  "  The  Origin  of 
Species  "  ("  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin," 
Vol.  II)  Huxley  said  :  "  My  reflections  when  I 
first  made  myself  master  of  the  central  idea  of 
the  '  Origin  '  was  how  extremely  stupid  not  to 
have  thought  of  that " — further  evidence  that  he 
had  known  nothing  of  the  details  of  the  Linnean 
Society  paper,  where  the  central  idea  was  admir- 
ably, although,  of  course,  briefly,  explained  by  its 
discoverers. 

Huxley's  want  of  knowledge  of  natural  selec- 
tion in  the  interval  between  July  i,  1858,  and  the 
end  of  November,  1859,  suggested  several  inter- 
esting reflections.  Great  and  original  workers 
rarely  had  the  time  for  wide  reading  in  their  sub- 
ject away  from  the  lines  of  their  special  investiga- 
tions. They  were  also  held  back  by  the  feeling 
that  the  attempt  to  be  encyclopaedic  was  itself 
destructive  of  originality  ;  and  yet  there  was  noth- 
ing so  inspiring  to  a  young  worker  as  the  fact  that 
his  attempts  had  interested  a  great  and  original 
leader  in  his  own  subject.  The  position  looked 


48   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

like  a  dilemma,  but  the  escape  was  easy.  The 
conditions  of  science  were  daily  becoming  more 
favourable  at  our  Universities,  where  the  older 
worker  had  a  parental  interest  in  the  younger 
and  would  by  no  means  quench  the  smoking  flax 
by  unintended  neglect.  Science  was  also  rich  in 
societies  where  old  and  young  could  meet,  and 
where  through  personal  contact,  far  better  than 
by  endless  hours  of  reading,  the  deepest  inspira- 
tion and  the  highest  encouragement  could  be 
given  and  received. 

If,  however,  the  antagonism  between  the 
excessive  cultivation  of  the  memory  and  the 
development  of  originality  was  seen  in  the 
lives  of  older  men,  whose  capacity  for  the 
highest  work  was  proved  and  certain,  surely 
conclusions  of  value  were  to  be  learned  from 
those  whose  duty  it  was  to  watch  over  the 
developing  mind  of  the  young.  A  little  know- 
ledge was  said  to  be  a  dangerous  thing;  but  as 
regarded  the  awakening  and  growth  of  the  most 
indispensable  part  of  our  intellectual  equipment 
— the  imagination — it  might  be  more  truly  said 
that  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  was  a  dangerous 
thing.  With  the  very  best  intentions,  but  with 
the  very  worst  results,  the  idea  had  taken  root  in 
this  country  that  the  imagination  must  not  be 
allowed  free  play  until  some  arbitrary  amount  of 
knowledge  had  been  imbibed,  and  the  result  was 
that  too  often  all  original  faculty  was  waterlogged 
and  drowned  in  a  sea  of  facts. 


NATURAL    SELECTION  49 

Huxley's  independent  views  on  evolution 
were  what  we  should  expect  from  a  great 
student  of  animal  structure  rather  than  of  animal 
life,  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  profound  and 
cautious  thinker.  Huxley  told  us  that  before 
the  appearance  of  the  "  Origin  "  he  took  his  stand 
upon  two  grounds — first,  that  up  to  that  time  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  transmutation  was  wholly 
insufficient;  and,  secondly,  that  no  suggestion  re- 
specting the  causes  of  the  transmutation  which 
had  been  made  was  in  any  way  adequate  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomena.  And  yet  all  along  there 
was  alive  in  him  a  sort  of  pious  conviction  that 
evolution  would  turn  out  true,  and  the  kind  of 
evolution  he  imagined  was,  so  far  as  we  were  able 
to  judge,  a  conception  which  would  arise  in  the 
mind  of  one  who  compared  animal  structures  with 
the  eye  and  brain  of  the  artist  or  engineer  rather 
than  of  the  naturalist.  At  the  age  of  twenty-six  he 
wrote  to  W.  S.  Macleay  ;  "  I  am  every  day  be- 
coming more  and  more  certain  that  you  were  on 
the  right  track  thirty  years  ago  in  your  views  of 
the  order  and  symmetry  to  be  traced  in  the  true 
natural  system."  Macleay's  ideas  of  the  grouping 
of  the  animal  kingdom  were  about  as  regular  and 
symmetrical  as  the  figures  seen  in  a  kaleidoscope. 
And  a  conception  of  sharply  separated  mathe- 
matically grouped  forms  would  naturally  lead  to 
the  idea  of  evolution  by  sharp  and  abrupt  steps, 
whereby  a  new  form  would  appear  by  sudden 
transformation  of  the  old,  just  as  a  chemical  com- 


50  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

pound  changed  when  one  element  in  it  was  re- 
placed by  another. 

The  evidence  at  our  disposal  led  to  the  belief 
that  such  was  the  state  of  Huxley's  mind  when,  in 
November,  1859,  he  read  the  "  Origin."  He  there 
met  with  far  more  convincing  proofs  of  evolution 
than  he  had  ever  encountered  before,  and  he 
accepted  them  at  once,  unreservedly,  permanently. 
He  furthermore  encountered  what  was  to  him  the 
entirely  new  idea  of  natural  selection,  and  he 
recognised  that  it  disposed  of  his  earlier  objection 
that  no  motive  cause  in  any  way  adequate  had 
been  suggested.  But  to  the  end  of  his  life  he 
never  went  beyond  that.  He  never  committed 
himself  to  a  full  belief  in  natural  selection,  and 
even  contemplated  the  possibility  of  its  ultimate 
disappearance.  The  difficulty  which  he  felt 
early  and  late,  and  about  which  he  had  a  pro- 
longed discussion  with  Darwin,  was  the  fact  that 
the  breeds  created  by  the  artificial  selection  of 
man  were  mutually  fertile,  while  the  species 
created  ex  hypotkesi  by  natural  selection  were 
mutually  sterile.  Without  going  into  the  contro- 
versy, it  might  be  said  that,  according  to  Darwin, 
Huxley's  objection  merely  meant  that  the  results 
of  an  experiment  prolonged  for  an  immense 
period  were  not  in  every  respect  the  same  as  those 
attained  when  it  endured  for  a  time  compara- 
tively brief.  Students  of  living*  nature  felt  a 
confidence  in  natural  selection  which  was  not 
shared  by  this  great  leader.  Just  as  it  required 
the  naturalist  to  discover  the  principle  itself,  so 


NATURAL  SELECTION  51 

the  experience  which  brought  belief  in  it  was  that 
mainly  of  the  naturalist,  and  the  strongest  con- 
fidence in  the  abiding  truth  of  a  theory  was  gained 
by  those  whose  imagination  had  been  inspired  by 
it.  Every  verified  prediction  made  by  the  light 
of  natural  selection  placed  the  theory  upon  a  more 
secure  foundation.  That  foundation  had  been 
growing  more  secure  for  nearly  half  a  century; 
but,  as  Prof.  Poulton  showed  in  conclusion,  that 
increasing  confidence  was  not  so  much  due  to  the 
facts  which  were  the  province  of  the  anatomist  as 
those  which  formed  the  every-day  experience  of 
the  naturalist,  of  the  man  who  studied  animal 
form  and  change  and  instinct,  not  in  relation  to 
the  single  individual  or  the  single  species,  but  in 
relation  to  the  whole  environment,  and  especially 
the  living  environment.  That  kind  of  study  did 
not  appeal  to  Huxley's  nature,  and  therefore  the 
confidence  in  natural  selection,  of  which  the  lec- 
turer had  spoken,  was  not  for  him ;  but  those  who 
felt  it  should  never  forget  how  much  they  owed 
to  Huxley  for  the  leading  part  he  took  in  the  great 
battles  which  had  to  be  fought  before  evolution 
and  natural  selection  were  accorded  a  fair  hear- 
ing ;  and  his  success  went  far  beyond  even  those 
issues.  Whatever  stirring  and  subversive  ideas 
the  future  might  be  preparing  for  us,  we  might  be 
sure  that  they  would  never  suffer  from  the  treat- 
ment accorded  to  the  "  Origin  of  Species,"  and 
far  more  than  to  any  other  single  man  the  world 
owed  that  immense  gain  to  Thomas  Henry 
Huxley. 


53 


RATIONALISM  AND  SCIENCE  IN 
RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS. 

By  Prof.  Percy  Gardner. 

Whether  your  Council  have  made  a  mistake  in 
the  selection  of  the  present  Huxley  lecturer  it  will 
be  for  my  audience  to  judge.  But  up  to  a  certain 
point  I  think  they  were  certainly  right.  They 
decided  that  when  a  lecture  was  founded  to  com- 
memorate a  man  so  many  sided  as  Thomas 
Huxley,  justice  could  not  be  done  to  him  if  only 
a  succession  of  biologists  were  nominated  to  the 
lectureship.  I  am  older  than  most  of  my  audi- 
tors, and  vividly  remember  the  part  which  Huxley 
played  in  the  national  life.  He  was  not  merely 
an  authority  on  biologic  questions,  a  first-rate 
lecturer  on  science  and  a  prominent  champion  of 
Darwinism,  but  also  a  man  through  whose  clear 
and  powerful  brain  all  the  great  questions  of  our 
time  circulated,  finding  there  an  alembic  whence 
they  often  issued  altered  and  clarified.  He  was 
not  only  a  man  of  science  but  also  a  man  of 
letters,  a  philosopher,  even  in  a  degree  a  theo- 
logian. He  once  said  of  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour 
that  he  had  science  in  his  blood;  we  may  say  of 
Huxley  that  he  had  literature  in  his  blood.  If 


54    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

we  accept  Matthew  Arnold^s_ view jhajL-the.-  pur- 
suit of  letters  consists  in  the  acquainting  oneself 
with  the  best  which  has  been  thought  and  said  in 
the  world,  Huxley  was  literary;  if  we  accept  the 
same  writer's  definition  of  religion  that  it  is 
morality  heightened,  kindled,  lit  up  by  feeling, 
Huxley  was  religious.  And  it  was  the  combina- 
tion in  him  of  science  with  literature  and  religion 
which  made  him  so  great  a  force  in  the  England 
of  the  Victorian  age. 

I  never  had  the  honour  of  personal  contact  with 
Huxley,  but  I  heard  him  speak  more  than  once, 
and  his  writings  have  deeply  interested  me  since 
I  was  a  child.  I  owe  him  a  debt,  which  I  may 
best  pay  by  trying  to  combine  as  he  did  the 
fanaticism  of  veracity  which  marks  the  man  of 
science  with  the  broad  outlook  on  human  life 
which  belongs  to  the  man  of  letters.  But  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  has  been  a  time  of  rapid,  of 
constantly  accelerated,  intellectual  movement, 
and  Huxley,  who  was  himself  ever  on  the  crest  of 
the  advancing  wave,  would  condemn  me  if  I  did 
not  try  to  penetrate  further  than  he  did  into  some 
of  the  tendencies  of  thought  which  are  ever  ebb- 
ing and  flowing,  and  are  now  more  clearly  to  be 
discerned  than  they  were  twenty  years  ago. 

I. 

I  have  taken  as  my  subject  Rationalism  and 
Science,  in  relation  to  social  movements,  and  I 
must  begin  by  trying  to  explain  in  what  sense  I 


RATIONALISM   AND    SCIENCE     55 

use  these  words.  We  are  used  to  the  word 
rationalism  in  religious  discussions,  and  there  we 
attach  to  it,  as  does  Lecky  in  his  History  of 
Rationalism,  a  somewhat  negative  meaning.  We 
think  it  implies  the  denial  of  old-fashioned  ortho- 
doxy, and  greater  reliance  on  reason  and  common 
sense.  I  do  not  propose  to  use  the  word  in  this 
somewhat  narrow  acceptation.  Again,  the  word 
science  is  in  this  country  applied  almost  exclu- 
sively to  the  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  of  the 
material  world,  physics,  chemistry,  biology.  But 
this  is  an  abusive  use  of  the  term.  For  science 
can  be  nothing  but  orderly  knowledge,  and 
orderly  knowledge  is  just  as  possible  in  such 
studies  as  philology  and  archaeology  and  history 
as  in  those  dealing  with  the  physical  world.  In 
all  the  great  academies  of  Europe  it  is  fully  recog- 
nised that  science  has  two  great  branches,  one  of 
which  deals  with  the  visible  world,  the  other  with 
man,  his  faculties  and  his  history. 

The  question  which  I  propose  to  discuss  is  the 
parts  belonging  respectively  to  rationalism  and 
to  science  in  modern  civilisation  and  progress. 
And  I  beg  to  be  allowed  to  mean  by  rationalism 
the  adoption  of  certain  fixed  principles  from  which 
the  course  of  our  action  may  be  deduced  or  argued 
out;  and  by  science  I  would  mean  the  regular 
and  methodic  knowledge  of  man,  in  the  past  and 
the  present ;  the  investigation  not  of  ethical  prin- 
ciples but  of  consequences,  of  events,  and  of  the 
results  of  action.  But  I  must  explain. 


56   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

Human  progress  in  general,  the  passage  of 
mankind  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  level,  consists, 
as  I  earnestly  believe,  and  as  I  have  tried  to  shew 
elsewhere,  in  the  gradual  embodiment  in  society 
of  certain  impulses  and  tendencies  arising  in  the 
obscure  regions  of  sub-conscious  life,  and  gradu- 
ally making  their  way  into  all  the  forms  of  human 
activity,  thought,  feeling,  action,  art,  institutions 
and  social  organization.  These  creative  and  life- 
giving  impulses  I  should  prefer  to  call  divine 
ideas;  but  if  anyone  regards  this  phrase  as  too 
theological  and  question-begging,  I  will  not  at 
this  moment  insist  upon  it.  We  need  not  stay  to 
examine  the  origin  of  these  ideas ;  we  have  enough 
to  do  in  tracing  their  manifestation  in  the  field  of 
consciousness.  However  they  originate,  they 
come  bubbling  up  from  unknown  depths  like  the 
springs  of  rivers  among  the  hills,  and  pass  on  to 
make  the  fields  of  life  fertile.  To  each  genera- 
tion and  to  every  nation  it  is  given,  or  at  least 
the  opportunity  is  given,  to  manifest  some  par- 
ticular ideas  in  higher  or  completer  form.  The 
Jews  owe  their  place  in  the  history  of  the  world  to 
their  enthusiasm  for  the  idea  of  the  divine  guid- 
ance and  government  of  mankind,  the  Romans 
to  their  sense  of  civic  law  and  order.  The 
Greeks,  more  susceptible  to  ideas  than  any  race 
that  ever  lived,  have  left  us  imperishable  embodi- 
ments of  the  ideas  of  rationality,  of  human  beauty, 
of  measure  and  method  in  all  things.  The  best 
achievement  of  the  Teutonic  races  was  their 


RATIONALISM    AND    SCIENCE     57 

development  of  the  ideas  of  loyalty  and  chivalry. 
These  races,  and  indeed  all  great  races,  have 
added  some  adornment  to  the  temple  of  humanity, 
and  made  the  life  of  each  succeeding  generation 
a  thing  of  higher  and  nobler  possibilities.  No 
doubt  they  have  all  had  defects  to  balance  the 
excellences,  the  Jews  narrowness  and  fanaticism, 
the  Romans  hardness  and  cruelty,  the  Greeks 
frivolity  and  want  of  moral  purpose,  the  Teutons 
the  vices  of  an  aristocracy.  But  to  every  man 
whose  eyes  are  not  jaundiced  by  cynicism,  these 
great  national  inspirations,  in  spite  of  all  draw- 
backs, will  appear  as  the  rich  legacies  of  the  past, 
making  life  in  the  present  worth  living. 

Savages  and  barbarians  below  a  certain  stage 
of  development  have  attained  a  definite  organiza- 
tion, what  may  be  termed  an  equilibrium.  They 
often  go  on  from  century  to  century  without  any 
great  change.  It  is  the  rise  of  ideas  which  breaks 
the  crust  of  fixed  custom.  The  innovators  are 
commonly  regarded  as  destructive  and  mis- 
chievous, so  that  the  path  of  progress  is  strewn 
with  the  bones  of  martyrs.  It  is  through  the  self- 
devotion  of  the  few  that  the  many  climb  painfully 
to  a  higher  level. 

The  ideas  as  they  rise  from  the  unseen  depths 
of  consciousness  usually  first  make  themselves 
known  in  action.  They  affect  will  and  emotion, 
which  are  nearer  akin  to  the  unconscious,  before 
they  seek  justification  in  thought.  But  sooner 
or  later  the  rational  part  of  man  must  be  satisfied 


58    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

as  well  as  his  emotional  part.     He  has  to  give 
some  sort  of  reason  for  the  hope  that  is  in  him. 

History  shews  us  very  clearly  how  this  demand 
for  a  reason  is  at  first  met  among  all  peoples  and 
nations.  It  is  met  by  a  direct  claim  that  the  line 
of  advance  is  shewn  by  revelation,  that  some  per- 
son or  society  is  inspired  by  the  gods  to  lead  the 
people  in  the  right  way.  We  are  familiar  with 
this  kind  of  appeal  from  our  acquaintance  with 
the  Old  Testament.  Nowhere  is  it  so  clearly 
and  emphatically  set  forth  as  in  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,  and  quite  especially  in  the  writings  of 
the  earliest  of  the  great  prophets,  A^mos  and 
Hosea.  It  is  the  word  of  the  Lord  which  they 
make  known  to  the  people;  and  they  tell  their 
contemporaries  in  burning  sentences  that  it  is  their 
life  and  peace  to  hear  that  word  and  to  do  it. 
But  our  religious  horizon  has  greatly  widened  of 
late  years,  and  we  now  know  that  among  all 
peoples  such  a  claim  has  been  put  forth  by 
prophets.  Israel  is  the  prophet  among  the 
nations;  but  all  nations  have  received  from  time 
to  time  like  prophetic  commands.  The  king  of 
Assyria  did  not  march  to  subdue  the  nations  save 
at  the  command  of  Asshur.  Numa  received  the 
laws  of  Rome  from  the  goddess  Egeria. 
Pharaoh  of  Egypt  was  an  impersonation  of  the 
Sun-god  Ra.  Pythagoras  was  an  inspired 
prophet,  and  his  society  arose  on  a  theocratic 
basis.  Nor  was  this  claim  at  all  confined  to  the 
men  of  the  childhood  of  the  world.  Socrates  was 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     59 

launched  on  his  career  by  the  voice  of  the  Apollo 
of  Delphi.  And  through  all  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  great  Reformers  and  the  Founders  of  Monas- 
tic Societies  were  fully  convinced  that  they  had 
a  special  mandate  from  above,  which  they  dared 
not  disobey.  I  need  mention  but  three  of  the 
most  conspicuous  names,  St.  Francis,  Luther, 
Wesley,  all  of  whom  were  consciously  the 
vehicles  of  a  divine  command. 

This  answer  to  the  demands  of  the  human  intel- 
lect, the  direct  appeal  to  a  divine  inspiration,  can- 
not be  called  a  form  of  rationalism.  What  we 
know  as  rationalism  is  rather  the  very  opposite. 
Rationalism  arises  as  the  belief  in  direct  inspira- 
tion grows  weaker.  It  is  a  reply  to  scepticism. 
When  a  prophet  is  asked  by  what  authority  he 
commands,  he  answers  by  a  manifestation  of 
spiritual  force.  But  this  reply  does  not  satisfy 
the  doubters  of  a  sceptical  age. 

I  am  speaking,  it  must  be  remembered,  of  great 
ethical  movements,  proposals  that  we  should 
modify  our  way  of  conduct,  in  regard  to  some  of 
the  great  and  important  matters  of  life.  A 
movement  in  such  and  such  a  direction,  we  sup- 
pose, is  springing  up  in  the  consciousness  of  men. 
It  will  scarcely  in  our  days  be  accepted  on  the 
authority  of  a  prophet  claiming  a  direct  mandate 
from  heaven.  It  meets  with  enthusiastic  appro- 
bation and  with  determined  opposition.  We  have 
as  best  we  may  to  reason  out  its  goodness  or  bad- 
ness in  discussion.  This  may  be  done  either  in 


6o    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  way  of  rational  ethics  or  of  science.  The 
ethical  way  is  to  make  appeal  to  some  principle 
generally  accepted  in  the  society,  rights  generally 
recognized,  beliefs  which  are  not  seriously  ques- 
tioned. It  has  to  be  shewn  that  the  proposed 
change  is  in  accord  with  or  contrary  to  these,  so 
that  consistency  would  compel  us  in  the  one  case 
to  accept,  in  the  other  to  reject  it.  The  way  of 
science  is  to  shew  the  results  which  follow  the 
adoption  of  the  disputed  principle,  results  either 
good  or  bad,  either  attracting  us  towards  it,  or 
warning  us  to  avoid  it,  as  we  avoid  disease  and 
death. 

But  abstract  talk  like  this  tends  to  make  the 
ears  dull,  so  that  the  speaker  does  not  take  his 
audience  with  him.  Rather  let  us  take  a  con- 
crete case,  in  order  that  we  may  see  the  two 
methods  of  which  I  am  speaking  not  as  mere  pos- 
sibilities but  as  actually  working  principles.  We 
will  take  up  a  controversy  now  practically  ex- 
tinguished, but  raging  with  great  force  in  the  last 
century,  the  controversy  which  ended  in  the 
abolition  of  negro  slavery  in  the  British  Colonies 
and  in  America. 

Here  the  ultimate  spring  was  no  doubt  an 
impulse  springing  up  in  the  consciences  of  thou- 
sands— a  conviction  of  the  sinfulness  of  slavery. 
When  the  matter  had  to  be  argued  on  the  plat- 
form and  in  the  legislatures,  the  impulse  had  to 
be  put  on  terms  with  men's  ordinary  ways  of 
thinking  and  action.  The  advocates  of  emanci- 


RATIONALISM    AND    SCIENCE     61 

pation  sometimes  appealed  to  the  general  belief 
in  certain  rights  of  man,  the  principle  that  a  being 
having  human  form  and  human  faculties  had  also 
certain  inherent  rights,  or  the  thesis  that  God  had 
made  all  men  of  one  blood.  This  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  rationalist  side  of  their  appeal : 
but  they  also  had  resort  to  arguments  of  another 
kind,  which  were  more  closely  akin  to  the  demon- 
strations of  science.  They  tried  to  shew  that 
slavery  had  in  the  past  worked  with  pernicious 
effect  on  the  societies  which  had  adopted  it,  and 
was  in  the  countries  which  upheld  it  even  in  our 
own  time  working  great  harm  on  the  character 
alike  of  the  slave-holder  and  the  slave.  Some- 
times they  would  take  a  lower  line,  and  try  to  shew 
that  in  production  slave  labour  was  actually  less 
efficient  than  free  labour,  and  so  dearer. 

The  controversy  in  regard  to  slavery  may  be 
said  to  be  now  closed.  And  we  are  disposed  to 
think  that  the  arguments  were  all  on  one  side. 
But  a  century  ago,  there  were  good  and  wise  men 
who  took  another  view;  and  they  also  appealed 
alike  to  accepted  principles  and  to  history  and 
experience,  especially  the  latter. 

Thus  the  abolitional  movement  found  means 
for  capturing  the  three  great  parts  of  human 
nature,  will,  emotion  and  intellect.  The  inner 
impulse  bent  the  wills  of  men,  especially  carrying 
away  in  a  strong  enthusiasm  the  wills  of  the 
leaders  of  the  movement,  Wilberforce,  Clarkson 
and  the  rest.  The  ethical  appeal  told  especially 


62    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

on  the  contagious  enthusiasms  of  the  platform; 
and  in  these  days  of  popular  government,  argu- 
ments suited  to  the  orator  are  necessary  in  all 
matters  involving  legislation.  The  appeal  of 
science  acted  on  more  thoughtful  people,  com- 
paratively few  in  number,  but  having  influence 
out  of  proportion  to  that  fewness,  in  virtue  of  their 
intelligence,  and  the  quiet  steadiness  of  their  con- 
victions. The  final  result  was  a  great  effort  of 
national  will,  but  it  was  helped  on,  and  even  made 
possible,  because  emotion  and  intellect  worked 
on  the  same  side. 

But  now  we  come  to  other  forces  which  are 
mainly  beyond  human  control,  the  constitution  of 
man  and  the  human  environment.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  there  were  two  states  existing  side  by 
side;  and  that  in  one  of  these  negro  slavery  was 
abolished,  while  in  the  other  it  was  retained.  The 
two  would  necessarily  compete,  and  one  would  be 
found  more  efficient,  more  successful  than  the 
other.  Evidently  here  the  abolitional  idea  would 
have  to  undergo  a  fresh  test,  that  of  working. 
And  apart  from  violent  interference  of  one  state 
with  the  other,  which  is  of  course  what  happened 
in  the  United  States,  the  final  triumph  of  the  one 
polity  or  the  other  must  be  determined  by  fact 
and  by  event.  If  the  idea  of  abolition  was  in 
harmony  with  the  facts  of  human  nature,  it  would 
triumph.  But  if  the  impulse  from  which  it  arose 
was  a  baseless  sentiment,  if  the  natural  rights  of 
man  were  a  delusion,  and  if  the  men  of  science 


RATIONALISM   AND   SCIENCE     63 

misjudged  the  results  of  slavery,  then  the  slave- 
state  would  in  the  course  of  time  crush  out  the 
state  which  abolished  slavery,  and  survive. 

There  is  then  an  ultimate  test  to  which  all 
human  endeavours,  all  plans  and  all  institutions 
must  submit,  the  test  of  working,  of  fruits,  of  sur- 
vival. It  is  a  hard  test,  proceeding  without  fear 
or  favour,  and  ruthlessly  trampling  out  whatever 
will  not  endure  it.  This  is  of  course  no  new 
doctrine;  and  from  the  beginning  of  literature  it 
has  been  expressed  in  a  hundred  ways.  The 
Hebrew  Psalmist  wrote  '  Such  as  be  blessed  of 
the  Lord  shall  inherit  the  earth,  and  they  that  be 
cursed  of  him  shall  be  cut  off.'  '  What  is  con- 
trary to  nature  cannot  succeed  '  is  the  burden  of 
philosophy  in  all  ages,  and  especially  of  the 
greatest  of  all  practical  philosophies,  the  Stoic. 
And  when  in  the  last  century  Darwin  emphasized 
the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  it  was 
but  this  old  wisdom  made  new. 

The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fit  and  the 
destruction  of  the  unfit  works  in  the  whole  field 
of  biology.  And  it  works  in  human  society. 
But  it  does  not  work  among  men  with  the  same 
force  and  regularity  with  which  it  works  among 
plants  and  animals.  For  the  free  will  of  man, 
however  it  be  explained,  is  an  existing  reality  : 
and  man  has  the  power  of  modifying  his  sur- 
roundings, even  in  some  cases  of  dominating 
them.  When  two  states  compete  in  the  markets 
of  the  world,  that  in  which  the  labour  is  most  efn- 


64   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

cient  will  tend  to  drive  out  the  other.  But  the 
state  of  less  efficient  labour  may  be  stronger  as  a 
military  force,  and  throw  the  sword  into  the  scale, 
or  it  may  be  wiser  politically  and  make  treaties 
which  shall  give  it  an  advantage  in  the  markets. 
Or  it  may  by  higher  internal  organization  diminish 
the  friction  which  wastes  power,  and  so  make  up 
for  inferior  powers  of  production.  And  within  a 
state  persons  or  classes  of  persons  who  would  in 
the  natural  course  of  things  be  starved  on  account 
of  their  inefficiency  may  be  kept  alive  through 
feelings  of  humanity.  And  education  regulated 
by  the  state  may  be  shaped  for  the  particular  pur- 
pose of  promoting  the  efficiency  which  leads  to 
survival. 

In  speaking  of  the  conditions  and  environment 
of  life  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  speak  as  a 
materialist,  and  am  thinking  only  of  the  natural 
frame  in  which  our  lives  are  set.  I  believe  fully 
that  we  also  live  in  a  spiritual  environment,  that 
our  lives  are  parts  of  a  greater  and  universal  life, 
that  we  belong  to  a  great  commonwealth  of  spirit. 
And  further  I  believe  that  in  this  spiritual  world 
there  may  be  traced  something  akin  to  human 
will  and  purpose,  but  on  a  higher  scale.  The 
ultimate  fact  for  us  is  not  the  material  world,  but 
the  spiritual  power  which  dwells  in  it  and  has 
created  it.  But  this  spiritual  world  also  has  its 
laws,  not  fixed  and  rigid  like  the  course  of  the 
stars,  but  yet  overpowering  and  dominant. 

Our  environment  may  best  be  regarded  as  a 


RATIONALISM    AND  SCIENCE     65 

stream  of  tendency  which  bears  us  all  along.  If 
we  are  passive  we  move  on  steadily.  If  we 
resist,  we  may  swim  against  the  stream,  but  it  is 
difficult  and  a  constant  drain  of  energy.  If  we 
swim  with  the  stream  we  move  fast.  It  is  by 
swimming  against  the  stream,  very  often,  that 
character  and  personality  are  made.  But  our 
lives  are  short;  and  in  the  long  run  the  stream 
has  its  way  with  communities  if  not  with  indi- 
viduals. Our  efficiency,  and  especially  our  effi- 
ciency in  societies,  depends  greatly  on  going 
rather  with  than  against  the  current. 

It  was  necessary  thus  to  map  out  the  ground,  in 
order  to  lead  up  to  the  things  on  which  I  really 
want  to  insist.  The  corollaries  which  follow  the 
truths  which  I  have  outlined  are  not  regarded  as 
truisms.  And  it  seems  to  me  of  great  importance 
that  they  should  be  brought  forward  on  occasions 
like  the  present,  when  a  broad  outlook  on  the 
great  problems  of  life  is  specially  in  place.  Pro- 
gress, I  have  maintained,  consists  in  the  absorp- 
tion into  the  frame  of  society  of  practical  impulses 
or  ideas.  These  ideas  must  be  justified  by 
appeals  to  accepted  principles  and  to  experience. 
And  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  ideas 
themselves  should  be  in  harmony  with  the  laws 
of  human  nature,  and  that  their  working  in  the 
world  should  be  seen  as  it  really  is.  In  all  these 
respects  in  our  days  great  difficulties  arise  from 
the  character  of  our  civilization  and  the  existing 
habits  of  thought. 


66    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

It  is  clear  that  the  intellectual  presentation  of 
the  ideas  requires  three  classes  of  workers.  We 
need  a  class  of  prophets  who  shall  be  susceptible 
to  the  ideas  as  they  slowly  emerge  from  the 
ground  of  the  unconscious.  We  need  phil- 
osophers and  men  of  letters  to  connect  them  with 
the  principles  generally  accepted  by  society. 
And  we  need  men  of  science  and  observation,  to 
trace  the  results  of  their  working  in  history  and 
in  the  human  world  around. 

After  all  the  great  task  is  to  persuade  the 
people.  In  our  days,  whether  for  good  or  for 
evil,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  democracy  has  be- 
come more  and  more  the  ruling  power.  Even  a 
Caesar  cannot  move  in  any  direction  against  the 
grain  of  his  people's  will.  Nor  can  an  aristocracy 
retain  the  direction  of  affairs,  unless  it  can  per- 
suade the  many  that  it  rules  for  the  general  good. 
The  counting  of  heads  to  save,  as  Bentham  said, 
the  trouble  of  breaking  them,  is  the  final  test  in 
all  practical  matters.  This  being  a  fixed  point, 
let  us  consider  how  the  working  of  ideas,  which  is 
to  the  community  what  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  is  to  an  individual  body,  finds  course  or 
hindrance  among  us. 

We  need  not  greatly  concern  ourselves  about 
the  prophets.  They  are,  so  to  speak,  the  super- 
natural element.  Their  advent  cannot  be  pro- 
cured or  foretold  any  more  than  can  the  weather 
of  a  week  hence.  There  will  always  be  prophets, 
some  true  and  some  false,  claiming  to  be  heard  : 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     67 

the  great  need  of  mankind  is  to  discern  between 
those  who  lead  to  what  is  good,  and  those  who 
seduce  to  what  is  evil.  The  really  practical 
questions  have  to  do  with  the  tests  by  which  ideas 
are  to  be  tried. 

In  such  testing  it  seems  to  me  that,  ever  since 
Darwin  and  his  school  came  upon  the  stage,  the 
appeal  to  fact,  to  experience,  to  results  has  been 
steadily  gaining  in  efficacy,  at  the  expense  of 
what  may  be  called  the  rationalist  appeal  to  a 
priori  principles  and  beliefs.  The  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  constantly  growing  restlessness 
of  mankind,  the  changes  in  our  surroundings  both 
social  and  economic,  the  drain  of  those  who  lived 
in  the  country  towards  the  great  cities  with  their 
life  of  fevered  activity,  have  made  it  hard  for  any 
accepted  principles  to  hold  their  place.  The 
tendency  is  to  call  in  question  all  the  beliefs 
whereby  in  times  past  men  have  directed  their 
actions.  And  on  the  other  hand,  science,  which 
is  of  course  only  organized  and  formulated  obser- 
vation and  experience,  has  been  maturing  with  a 
rapidity  compared  with  which  its  previous  pro- 
gress was  but  slow  even  in  the  most  active  and 
intellectual  ages  of  the  world's  history,  the  ages 
of  Aristotle  and  of  Leibnitz.  Into  every  branch 
of  knowledge  we  are  introducing  method ;  the  pro- 
gress of  discovery  is  advancing  into  fields  never 
yet  occupied;  the  test  of  results  is  the  one  test 
which  is  always  accepted. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  justify  this  progressive 


68    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

supersession  of  rationalism  by  science.  In  many 
ways  it  is  to  be  deplored.  The  restlessness  of 
modern  society  is  in  itself  a  serious  evil ;  and  one 
looks  with  anxiety  to  see  whether  the  great  root 
principles  which  have  been  worked  into  the  fabric 
of  modern  society  will  not  be  called  in  question. 
Even  such  institutions  as  monogamy  and  the  pos- 
session of  private  property  do  not  pass  without 
inquiry.  All  this,  one  hopes,  is  transitional,  the 
result  of  too  rapid  changes  physical  and  social. 
But  whether  one  deplores,  or  whether  one  de- 
fends, the  change  in  the  centre  of  gravity,  that 
such  a  change  is  taking  place  is  past  question. 
A  recent  speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons  spoke 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man  as  '  dead  as 
Rousseau  ' :  and  one  could  scarcely  contradict 
him. 

And  looking  in  all  directions  for  a  remedy,  one 
can  find  it  only  in  a  broader,  more  human,  more 
profound,  study  of  human  phenomena,  and  the 
growth  of  a  science  treating  of  man  and  his  facul- 
ties as  well  developed  and  as  detailed  as  is  the 
study  of  the  visible  universe.  No  such  science 
can  give  us  ideals;  there  can  be  no  mere  obser- 
vational determination  of  right  and  wrong,  good 
and  evil ;  but  still,  fuller  knowledge  may  serve  to 
protect  us  against  some  of  the  aberrations  and 
absurdities  which  threaten  society. 

I  have  been  reading  the  recently  published 
letters  of  a  man  for  whom  I  have  always  had  the 
deepest  respect,  John  Stuart  Mill.  Those  letters 


RATIONALISM   AND   SCIENCE     69 

are  full  of  the  intellectual  honesty  and  moral 
courage  in  which  Mill  perhaps  surpassed  all  his 
contemporaries.  But  they  are  instructive  in 
another  way.  Mill's  career  immediately  pre- 
ceded the  great  trend  in  the  direction  of  the 
scientific  treatment  of  human  problems  which  we 
owe  mainly  to  the  influence  of  Darwin  and 
Spencer.  His  letters  remarkably  illustrate  the 
distinction  which  I  have  drawn  between  the 
rationalist  and  the  scientific  way  of  considering 
problems  of  conduct  and  sociology.  The 
rationalist  is  self-confident,  fully  trusting  in  argu- 
ment, ready  to  assert  his  principles  in  season  and 
out  of  season.  The  man  of  science  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  modest,  laborious,  most  anxious  to  omit  no 
phenomena,  having  a  deep  respect  for  every  view 
which  has  actually  worked  among  men.  A  letter 
of  Mill's  in  regard  to  the  religious  observance  of 
Sunday  is  very  typical.*  One  would  expect  the 
great  advocate  of  Utilitarian  Ethics,  before  con- 
demning this  institution,  to  consider  what  part  it 
had  played  in  the  history  of  England  and  Scot- 
land, and  what  practical  results  might  follow  from 
its  destruction.  But  the  rationalist  in  Mill  is  far 
too  strong  for  any  such  investigation.  To  attri- 
bute any  sacredness  to  the  day,  he  writes,  '  is  as 
mere  a  superstition  as  any  of  the  analogous  pre- 
judices which  existed  in  times  antecedent  to 
Christianity.'  The  preservation  of  the  Sunday 

*  Letters,  I,  100. 


70    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

as  a  day  of  devotion  is,  according  to  the  writer, 
mere  cant.  '  The  devotion  which  is  not  felt 
equally  at  all  times  does  not  deserve  the  name/ 
And  so  he  proceeds.  It  is  strange  that  it  did  not 
occur  to  him  to  consider  why  in  such  a  case  the 
observance  of  Sunday  had  so  long  persisted  in 
Great  Britain.  In  some  of  Mill's  letters  one  finds 
a  painful  consummation  to  which  such  rationalism 
as  his  may  easily  lead.  He  expresses  a  deliberate 
opinion  that  in  the  government  of  the  world  the 
spiritual  power  of  evil  is  stronger  than  the  power 
of  good.  That,  I  think,  is  a  conclusion  which 
will  often  be  reached  by  a  rationalist  who  first 
determines  by  the  light  of  his  own  sentiments 
what  a  moral  government  of  the  world  ought  to 
be,  and  then  condemns  that  which  actually  exists 
because  it  does  not  conform  to  such  preconceived 
notions.  The  spirit  of  science  is  utterly  different. 
Starting  from  the  facts  of  the  world  and  of 
human  nature,  the  scientist  will  try  so  far  as  he 
can  to  understand  them,  and  where  he  fails  will 
be  apt  to  lay  the  blame  on  his  own  faculties.  At 
all  events,  taking  them  as  they  stand,  he  will  try 
how  human  conduct  may  best  be  harmonized  with 
these  fixed  surroundings.  It  is  only  by  accepting 
the  laws  of  nature  that  practical  science  pro- 
gresses; and  it  is  only  by  accepting  the  fixed 
tendencies  of  man  and  society  that  we  can  hope 
to  improve  mankind  ethically  and  socially. 


RATIONALISM   AND   SCIENCE     71 

II. 

The  moral  is  sufficiently  obvious.  It  is  of  the  )  ' 
utmost  necessity  for  the  well-being  and  progress 
of  society  that  the  sciences  which  have  man  for 
their  subject-matter  should  be  earnestly  pursued; 
that  they  should  be  organized  at  our  Universities, 
that  research  in  them  should  be  made  one  of  the 
great  ends  of  all  higher  education,  that  we  should 
set  aside  every  weight  and  hindrance  which  may 
prevent  us  from  running  this  course  with  all  the 
energy  which  we  possess. 

Theoretically,  perhaps,  almost  any  thoughtful 
person  would  concede  this  principle.  Yet  when 
we  come  to  look  at  education  as  it  is,  we  see  that 
the  practical  means  to  this  end  are  by  no  means 
so  generally  conceded.  We  in  England  are  in 
this  matter  behind  the  nations  of  the  Continent, 
especially  France  and  Germany.  With  us  educa- 
tion is  still  regarded  as  necessarily  either  literary 
or  scientific.  By  a  literary  education  we  mean  an 
acquaintance  with  certain  languages  an3  tHe 
books  written  in  them,  a  training  whereby  a  man 
acquires  a  good  and  correct  stylejnjwriting.  and 
a  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  nature  and  the 
great  problems  of  life  have  been  regarded,  more 
especially  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  In  its 
own  way  this  training  is  admirable;  I  should  be 
one  of  the  last  to  speak  slightingly  of  it.  For 
four  hundred  years  it  has  served  to  maintain  a 
high  standard  of  literature  and  culture.  It  takes 


72    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  minds  of  the  educated  out  of  their  narrow  sur- 
roundings into  the  broad  spaces  of  Greek 
thought.  It  keeps  before  us  the  imperishable 
models  of  ancient  beauty,  the  poems  of  Homer 
and  Virgil,  the  dramas  of  Euripides,  the  dialogues 
of  Plato,  the  lives  of  Plutarch,  the  statues  of 
Phidias  and  Praxiteles.  If  we  were  to  forget  or 
to  neglect  these  precious  legacies  of  the  past,  we 
should  fall  many  degrees  in  civilization.  Nor 
less  is  the  claim  upon  us  of  modern  literature  and 
art  in  all  their  phases.  But  yet  this  culture  leaves 
lacunae. 

By  a  scientific  education  men  usually  mean  a 
training  in  what  is  in  this  country  regarded  as  in 

_. nT         -^ -   — rr^  in  i  -^^ 

a  special  degree  science,  the  natural  knowledge 
which  begins  with  mathematics  and  ends  with 
biology,  the  study  of  the  visible  world,  of  nature 
animate  and  inanimate.  This  training  also  is  in 
its  way  admirable ;  it  would  be  in  me  an  imperti- 
nence to  attempt  to  write  its  panegyric.  But  has 
it  no  tendency  to  drift  into  specialism,  a  narrow- 
ing of  the  mind  to  a  single  small  field  of  study 
and  observation?  and  is  it  free  from  the  danger 
of  disposing  those  who  too  exclusively  pursue  it 
towards  materialism,  and  blindness  to  the  higher 
and  more  human  side  of  life?  The  space  left 
between  literary  education  on  one  side  and  scien- 
tific education  on  the  other,  is  in  England  very 
imperfectly  occupied.  Human  science  is  among 
us  the  Cinderella,  whose  sisters  are  made  much 
of,  while  she  has  to  take  what  they  do  not  care  for. 


RATIONALISM   AND    SCIENCE     73 

And  the  fairy  godmother  does  not  arrive,  but  in 
her  place  there  come  many  spirits  of  delusion ;  so 
that  the  ground  which  should  be  occupied  by 
ordered  knowledge  is  seized  upon  by  all  sorts  of 
charlatans,  and  becomes  a  hunting  place  for  all 
kinds  of  untrained  intelligences. 

I  would  earnestly  plead  for  a  better  recogni- 
tion, a  more  complete  organization,  a  better 
endowment  for  the  studies  of  which  man  is  the 
subject  matter. 

They  fall  naturally  into  three  groups.  Firstly 
we  have  the  historic  group,  a  series  of  sciences 
philological,  archaeological,  and  the  like,  the 
purpose  of  which  is  to  make  the  life  of  men  in 
the  past  live  again  in  the  present  in  all  detail  and 
vividness.  Nothing  in  that  life  is  irrelevant,  no 
detail  which  can  possibly  be  reached  by  research 
is  unimportant.  Every  touch  of  the  brush  helps 
a  great  picture,  and  in  the  same  way  the  discovery 
of  a  few  small  documents  illuminating  some  phase 
of  past  history  may  be  in  its  working  quite  revo- 
lutionary. A  ray  of  light  falling  on  a  spot  hitherr 
to  obscure  may  shew  a  diamond. 

The  study  of  history  has  no  doubt  in  most 
places  changed  its  character  and  methods,  and 
become  more  fully  alive.  But  generally  speak- 
ing there  is  still  too  much  in  it  of  a  merely  literary 
character;  the  enjoyment  of  the  writings  of  his- 
torians, however  good  in  itself,  cannot  take  the 
place  of  an  intense  realization  of  the  meaning  of 


74    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  past  to  all  of  us,  and  an  insatiable  desire  to 
learn  to  the  utmost  what  really  took  place. 

Very  often  we  hear  a  shameless  avowal  of  con- 
tempt for  '  mere  history/  f  Let  bygones  be  by- 
gones/ men  say ;  '  we  have  to  do  with  the  present.1 
But  the  very  problems  which  these  men  have  to 
solve  in  the  present,  have  been  attempted  a  thou- 
sand times  before  in  the  course  of  history.  Are 
we  to  throw  away  all  the  results  of  human  effort 
and  learn  only  by  the  education  of  failure  what  is 
good  for  us?  Would  a  biologist  confine  his 
attention  to  the  study  of  existing  species  of  plants 
and  animals  ?  or  would  a  chemist  set  aside  as  un- 
worthy of  study  the  results  of  the  experiments  of 
his  predecessors?  So  short  is  human  life,  and 
so  feeble  the  intelligence  of  man,  that  unless  he 
profits  by  the  experience  of  past  generations,  he 
will  be  falling  back,  not  advancing  in  knowledge. 
The  truth  is  that  the  historian  who  discovers  the 
real  line  of  human  progress  in  the  past,  even  in 
some  quite  subordinate  part  of  the  field,  does  at 
least  as  much  for  the  well-being  of  mankind  as 
the  man  who  discovers  a  new  gas,  or  invents  a 
new  mode  of  more  rapid  intercourse  between 
peoples. 

Speaking  in  the  light  of  my  own  studies  I  may 
say  that  there  are  two  periods  of  ancient  history 
which  are  of  extreme  interest  to  us  moderns,  not 
only  as  picturesque  in  themselves,  but  as  shewing 
us  the  true  working  and  results  of  many  of  the 
social  tendencies  now  prevailing.  These  periods 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     75 

are  the  age  of  the  spread  of  Greek  culture  after 
Alexander,  and  the  early  age  of  Christianity  in 
the  Graeco-Roman  world.  These  times  are  full 
of  modernity.  The  problems  with  which  they 
teem  are  our  problems,  and  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  factors  which  then  worked  will  work 
in  the  same  direction  now.  Great  shifts  of  popu- 
lation to  new  regions,  the  drift  of  the  dwellers  in 
the  country  districts  towards  the  towns,  the  decay 
of  religious  belief,  vast  wealth  of  a  few  and  gall- 
ing poverty  of  many,  distaste  for  military  service, 
increase  of  divorce,  a  falling  birth-rate,  these  and 
many  other  modern  tendencies  were  familiar  two 
thousand  years  ago.  And  men  of  those  times, 
men  quite  as  wise  as  any  of  us,  tried  to  devise 
cures  for  these  things,  introduced  some  remedies 
which  were  palliations  for  the  diseases  of  society, 
and  some  remedies  which  only  increased  the  evils 
they  were  intended  to  prevent.  All  these  things 
stand  written  in  the  history  of  the  past.  Are  we 
so  wise  or  so  self-confident  as  to  disdain  to  learn 
the  lessons  which  history  teaches  ?  Must  we  learn 
only  as  do  plants  and  animals,  from  the  hard 
lessons  of  suffering? 

In  this  matter  Germany  has  something  to 
teach.  A  French  writer,  M.  P.  Huvelin,  writes 
as  follows  : — 

*  It  is  an  enviable  privilege  of  the  Germans  that 
they  realize  without  effort  and  by  nature  the  rela- 
tions between  practical  aims  and  disinterested 
study.  With  them,  new  social  and  academic 


76    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

needs  give  life  not  only  to  practical  work,  but  to 
scientific  research.  Examples  abound.  Does 
Germany  desire  to  acquire  possessions  beyond 
the  sea?  At  once  there  arises  a  literature  on 
colonial  geography,  methods  of  colonization, 
colonial  legislation.  Does  she  wish  to  augment 
her  fleet?  Her  writers  investigate  history  to  see 
if  there  exists  a  necessary  connexion  between  a 
powerful  fleet  and  a  prosperous  commerce/  And 
so  forth.  The  picture  may  be,  as  regards  Ger- 
many, rather  highly  coloured;  but  it  represents 
what  would  happen  in  an  ideal  Germany,  or  in 
any  country  which  realizes  the  relations  between 
knowledge  and  action. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  all  the  facts  of  ancient 
history  have  been  known  by  our  ancestors  for 
generations,  and  have  been  taken  into  account  by 
our  statesmen  and  publicists.  Nothing  could  be 
less  true  than  such  an  assertion.  We  are  only 
beginning,  by  the  help  of  exploration,  excavation, 
renewed  study  of  historians,  to  understand  what 
really  took  place  in  the  ancient  world.  The  con- 
ventional notions  on  the  subject  which  we  in- 
herit from  our  fathers  are  as  unlike  the  reality  as 
the  engravings  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  which  we 
find  in  old  illustrated  Bibles  are  unlike  the 
palaces  which  actually  existed  at  Babylon.*  For 
example  we  have  begun  in  recent  years  to  realize 
how  great  a  part  in  ancient  history  was  played  by 

*  No   recently   published   work   shews   this   more   clearly 
than  Professor  E.  Meyer's  Kleine  Schriften. 


RATIONALISM    AND    SCIENCE     77 

supply  and  demand  of  commodities,  by  desire  of 
fresh  markets,  by  poverty  and  unemployment. 
It  is  the  course  of  events  in  our  own  days  which 
has  thrown  an  entirely  fresh  light  on  ancient  his- 
tory. And  if  we  only  take  the  trouble  to  pay 
attention,  ancient  history  can  in  return  throw  a 
flood  of  light  on  our  own  present  and  on  the  future 
which  awaits  us.  And  what  is  true  of  ancient 
history  is  quite  as  true  of  more  recent  history. 

Secondly,  we  have  the  psychological  group  of 
studies,  which  investigate  the  active  and  the 
thinking  powers  of  man,  the  conscious  powers, 
and  that  great  realm  of  the  unconscious  which  now 
takes  so  great  a  place  in  our  horizon.  It  is 
astounding  what  great  revolutions  are  wrought 
alike  in  our  conceptions  of  history  and  our  practi- 
cal activities  in  the  world  by  the  introduction  of 
truer  views  of  the  nature  of  human  feelings, 
habits  and  thoughts.  Every  practical  man  has  to 
deal  with  the  minds  of  his  fellows,  and  the 
analogy  of  all  other  studies  proves  that  he  will 
work  far  more  effectually  when  he  has  an  accurate 
and  methodical  notion  of  what  those  minds  are, 
than  he  can  when  he  merely  knows  them  by  rule 
of  thumb.  Practical  statesmen  are  often  dis- 
posed to  think  lightly  of  the  methodical  study  of 
man,  yet  could  not  any  psychologist  point  to  Acts 
of  Parliament  and  decrees  of  Emperors  the 
failure  of  which,  from  their  want  of  conformity 
to  human  nature,  could  quite  well  have  been  fore- 
seen? 


78   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

I  must  not  venture  to  speak  of  a  special  side  of 
psychology  which  has  been  lately  brought  into 
prominence,  and  in  regard  to  which  words  from 
Birmingham  are  greatly  valued,  the  study  of  the 
sub-conscious  side  of  man.  Hence  has  come  in- 
deed a  great  revelation.  And  I  venture  to  say 
that  as  regards  human  progress  and  human  happi- 
ness this  great  accession  to  our  knowledge  is 
far  heavier  in  the  balances  than  such  discoveries 
as  those  of  radium  or  of  wireless  telegraphy 
which  only  touch  human  life  on  the  outside. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  new  psychology  of  religion 
which  has,  or  is  destined  to  have,  the  greatest 
effect  on  our  practical  and  ethical  life.  In  recent 
years  there  has  been  an  immense  deal  of  research 
and  of  writing  in  regard  to  such  matters  as  the 
relations  between  reason  and  faith,  or  the  con- 
nexion between  fact  and  doctrine,  or  the 
phenomena  of  religious  experience,  which  must 
needs  have  a  profound  influence  on  the  faith  of 
the  Christian  Church.  It  is  now  realized  that 
religion  does  not  lie  in  the  reception  of  certain 
facts  as  historic,  but  in  an  attitude  of  the  spirit; 
and  that  attitude  is  the  result  of  an  immense  his- 
torical process.  Like  all  great  discoveries  this 
change  sometimes  dazzles  the  explorer.  We 
have  perversions,  as  when  some  of  the  reactionary 
parties,  more  especially  the  Jesuits,  think  they 
can  justify  on  psychologic  grounds  all  the  super- 
stitions of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  without  going 
this  length  we  may  see  that  too  great  reliance  on 


RATIONALISM   AND    SCIENCE     79 

reason  greatly  misled  the  Reformers  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  making  them  develop  rigid 
schemes  of  theology  almost  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  religious  truth  is  relative,  and  belongs  not 
like  mathematics  to  an  abstract  scheme  of 
thought,  but  to  the  ethical  and  practical  side  of 
man.  In  a  sense  even  the  basest  superstition  has 
some  justification,  for  it  could  not  have  arisen  but 
for  its  satisfaction  of  some  human  need.  But  a 
society  is  debased  if  it  retains  too  long  beliefs 
suited  to  a  barbarous  age,  but  later  tending  to 
dwarf  the  intelligence  and  fetter  the  freedom  of 
mankind. 

Nowhere  better  than  in  Huxley's  essay  upon 
Descartes  is  expressed  the  growing  conviction  of 
investigators  that  all  knowledge  has  a  base  in 
psychology,  that  every  fact  has  a  subjective 
element,  that  nothing  can  be  seen  but  in  a  human 
mirror.  The  relativity  of  knowledge  to  the  know- 
ing mind  is  the  truth  which  has  altered  the  basis 
of  all  such  branches  of  study  as  have  to  do  with 
man's  thought  and  feeling,  aesthetics,  religion, 
even  economics ;  has  destroyed  their  abstract  and 
rationalist  character,  and  drawn  them  into  the 
ways  of  scientific  method. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  group  of  studies  included 
in  sociology.  In  England  in  past  days  we  made 
the  mistake  of  setting  apart  one  class  of  social 
phenomena,  the  facts  of  the  production  and  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  and  supposing  that  the  Politi- 
cal Economy  which  is  concerned  with  these  can 


8o    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

be  dealt  with  apart  from  all  other  phenomena  of 
society.  This  is  in  the  long  run  impossible.  We 
may  of  course  have  Political  Economists  as 
specialists,  just  as  we  have  Physicians  who  make 
a  speciality  of  the  lungs  or  the  throat  or  the  eye. 
But  after  all  the  health  of  a  body  depends  upon 
all  the  parts  working  together,  and  the  well-being 
of  a  nation  depends  not  only  upon  its  wealth  but 
upon  its  efficiency  in  all  fields  of  human  activity. 
When  one  considers  what  must  finally  be  included 
in  sociology,  all  the  studies  which  have  to  do  with 
man  in  society,  from  eugenics  and  political 
economy  on  one  wing  to  ethics  and  religion  on 
the  other,  one  feels  that  our  society  has  reached  a 
point  like  the  summit  of  Pisgah,  whence  the 
promised  land  may  be  seen  in  all  its  beauty  and 
fertility,  a  land,  however,  which  has  to  be  reached 
through  much  toil  and  many  wars.  The  land  is 
not  yet  even  thoroughly  surveyed;  we  have  no 
good  map  of  it,  and  we  are  dependent  on  the 
reports  of  solitary  workers  who  have  made  their 
way  into  one  or  another  of  its  many  regions,  and 
brought  back  weighty  loads  of  fruit. 

Let  me  take  a  concrete  example.  Lately  I 
had  the  pleasure  to  take  a  modest  part  in  an  im- 
portant conference  held  in  London  on  the  subject 
of  town-planning.  In  the  last  ten  years  it  has 
dawned  upon  the  people  of  Europe  and  America 
that  the  planning  of  towns  has  hitherto  been  quite 
at  the  mercy  of  accident,  that  private  owners, 
looking  only  to  their  own  interests,  have  sue- 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     81 

ceeded  in  making  our  cities  very  far  from  what 
they  should  be,  without  unity  of  plan,  without 
consideration  for  the  general  convenience,  quite 
unfit  to  serve  many  of  the  purposes  of  civilization. 
And  there  have  sprung  up  in  England,  France, 
Germany  and  America,  not  merely  a  few,  but 
hundreds  of  societies  pledged  as  far  as  may  be 
to  remedy  these  evils,  to  make  our  cities  more 
orderly  in  arrangement,  more  healthy,  more 
cleanly,  free  from  the  thousand  nuisances  which 
make  our  lives  dull  and  ugly,  free  from  palls  of 
smoke  and  the  blatant  vulgarity  of  pushing 
advertisements.  Here  indeed  is  a  movement 
which  stirs  the  pulses  of  men !  Here  are  ideals 
which  can  only  be  attained  by  method  and 
thought,  that  is  to  say  by  science.  But  the 
science  by  which  they  are  to  be  reached  is  not 
mere  constructive  skill,  nor  the  art  of  gardening, 
of  paving  or  of  building.  It  is  essentially  human 
science,  and  has  a  place  in  all  three  of  the  sections 
which  I  have  mentioned.  We  want  to  know  with 
accuracy  what  purposes  men  work  with,  what  are 
the  laws  of  health,  what  contributes  to  beauty  and 
what  overwhelms  us  with  ugliness.  We  want 
also  to  study  social  conditions,  the  tenure  of  land, 
the  divisions  of  employment  in  a  locality,  the 
needs  of  future  generations,  in  order  that  we  may 
learn  to  subordinate  the  interests  of  individuals 
to  the  general  good,  and  to  make  our  societies 
really  healthy  and  progressive.  Unless  the  laws 
of  man  and  of  society  are  first  considered,  our 


82    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

plans  will  be  struggles  towards  an  unknown  end. 
They  will  be  like  planning  a  shell  for  a  marine 
creature  of  unknown  size  and  habits,  like  build- 
ing a  house  without  knowing  what  sort  of  a  family 
is  to  live  in  it. 

The  organizers  of  that  Conference  arranged 
that  their  proceedings  should  begin  with  papers 
on  town-planning  in  the  past,  by  the  Greeks,  the 
Romans  and  the  Europeans  of  the  Renaissance. 
These  predecessors  of  ours  had  to  face,  not  pre- 
cisely our  problems,  but  problems  similar  to  ours. 
Cities  like  Rhodes  and  Antioch,  Alexandria  and 
Pergamon  were  laid  out  by  architects  whose 
technical  skill  was  almost  equal  to  that  of  their 
modern  successors,  and  to  whom  the  utmost  free- 
dom was  given  to  make  a  city,  with  its  walls  and 
market  place,  its  temples,  gymnasia  and  streets, 
on  the  most  scientific  principles.  It  would  be 
absurd  that  when  a  federal  capital  has  to  be  built 
for  Australia  or  India,  or  a  great  city  like  Chicago 
to  be  spread  out  on  a  plain,  the  lessons  of  the 
past  should  not  be  used  to  the  utmost,  and  hints 
taken  from  all  available  records.  Surely  here  is 
an  example  which  justifies  my  contention  that  for 
wise  action  in  the  present,  and  for  far-seeing 
plans  for  the  future  it  is  above  all  things  neces- 
sary that  our  knowledge  of  man  and  of  his  history 
should  be  as  exact,  as  detailed  and  as  vivid  as 
possible. 


RATIONALISM    AND    SCIENCE     83 

III. 

When  we  consider  how  rapid  has  been  the  pro- 
gress in  recent  times  of  physical  and  biological 
sciences,  and  realize  how  slow  in  comparison  has 
been  the  progress  in  the  knowledge  of  man,  we 
may  almost  despair.  We  can  scarcely  say  that, 
in  many  important  respects,  we  know  more  of  the 
nature  of  human  well-being  than  was  known  by 
Aristotle.  Yet  in  some  countries,  more  especi- 
ally in  Germany  and  America,  at  least  the  magni- 
tude of  the  task  and  the  infinite  importance  of 
reaching  sound  and  trustworthy  results  are 
beginning  to  be  recognised. 

As  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  great  age  of 
discovery  in  the  sciences  of  nature,  so,  I  venture 
to  prophesy,  the  twentieth  century  will  be  the 
great  age  of  discovery  in  human  science.  Com- 
pared with  our  mastery  of  the  forces  of  nature, 
our  mastery  of  ourselves  and  our  destiny  is  in  an 
infantile  stage.  We  see  how  utterly  defective 
are  the  arrangements  of  society  around  us.  We 
see  how  our  medicine  is  capable  of  grappling  with 
definite  diseases,  but  has  no  ideal  of  human 
health,  how  our  skill  produces  an  infinite  mass  of 
wealth,  and  then  distributes  it  in  a  way  that  is 
simply  appalling.  We  see  how  marriage  remains 
at  the  mercy  of  the  worst  regulated  impulses  of 
our  nature,  without  any  thought  of  the  future  of 
the  race.  We  see  how  charitable  feelings  to- 
wards our  fellow  men,  instead  of  being  a  raising 


84    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

force  in  the  world,  tend  constantly,  through  sheer 
want  of  method  and  wisdom,  to  degrade  a  great 
part  of  the  people,  and  to  promote  the  shiftless- 
ness  of  the  idle,  and  the  multiplication  of  the 
unfit.  These  things  brood  in  the  hearts  of  all 
who  try  to  look  with  unblinded  eyes  on  modern 
society.  And  there  comes  among  us  a  constant 
stream  of  would-be  reformers,  who  see  the  evil 
and  have  a  nostrum  of  their  own  to  cure  the  ills 
of  the  world.  As  in  the  Middle  Ages  men  sought 
a  philosopher's  stone,  the  touch  of  which  would 
turn  all  substances  to  gold,  so  these  social 
alchemists  recommend  some  hastily  adopted  salve 
as  sovereign  for  all  the  ills  of  society.  When 
their  remedy  takes  the  form  of  the  foundation  of 
some  socialist  society,  at  all  events  it  is  an  experi- 
ment from  the  failure  of  which  mankind  may  learn 
much.  But  if  such  experiments  are  to  be  first 
tried  on  whole  nations,  it  is  terrible  to  think  what 
misery  and  destruction  will  be  caused. 

The  only  true  course  is  for  practical  experi- 
ments to  follow  in  the  wake  of  systematic  know- 
ledge. Systematic  knowledge  cannot  give  us 
ideals;  they  must  arise  within,  and  cannot  be 
gained  by  study  of  fact  and  condition.  But  un- 
less the  ideals  are  pursued  with  a  knowledge  of 
history  and  of  human  nature  the  result  can  only 
be  disappointment  and  disaster. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  our  days  everyone  who 
desires  extensive  changes  in  the  frame  of  society 
calls  himself  a  socialist.  As  a  result  the  most 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     85 

discordant  views  and  purposes  are  covered  by 
that  convenient  term.  The  Marxian  school  of 
socialists  on  the  Continent  have  as  their  avowed 
object  the  improvement  of  the  economic  condition 
of  the  manual  workers,  the  securing  for  them  of  a 
greater  share  in  the  world's  produce  by  means  of 
a  kind  of  social  war.  In  England  this  is  regarded 
as  the  main  function  of  the  trades  unions;  and 
with  us  the  term  socialism  covers  a  much  wider 
variety  of  views,  from  the  desire  of  simpler  and 
less  ostentatious  living  to  dislike  of  all  existing 
institutions.  And  everyone  who  chooses  to  call 
himself  a  socialist  thinks  that  he  may  dogmatize 
as  to  what  socialism  really  is.  One  theorist  will 
tell  us  that  it  implies  the  expropriation  of  all  the 
owners  of  material  resources.  Another  will  say 
that  it  is  not  compatible  with  the  present  organiza- 
tion of  the  family.  A  third  will  regard  it  as 
bound  up  with  secularity,  and  incompatible  with 
the  Christian  religion.  And  so  forth.  But  I 
would  venture  to  submit,  that  socialistic  theories 
and  experiments  have  been  going  on  in  the 
civilized  world  from  the  very  beginning  of  his- 
tory. Plato  opened  an  aera  of  speculation  on 
the  subject  in  his  immortal  Republic;  and  in  the 
days  of  Plato  there  existed  a  community,  that  of 
the  Spartans,  in  which  socialist  ideas  had  more 
full  course  in  practical  life  than  they  have  had 
in  any  commonwealth  since.  So  the  study  of 
history  must  claim  its  right  before  we  can  venture 
to  say  that  we  know  much  about  socialism.  And 


86   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  study  of  man  as  an  individual  and  of  man  in 
society  claims  its  rights;  for  if  we  assume  human 
nature  to  be  other  than  it  is,  our  whole  construc- 
tion is  built  of  unsound  materials,  and  will  topple 
into  ruins  as  fast  as  we  build.  Men  are  the  bricks 
of  which  any  community  must  be  built,  and  we 
must  know  what  strain  those  bricks  will  stand, 
and  whether  they  can  resist  wind  and  rain.  I 
take  it  that  the  only  true  basis  of  socialism  lies  in 
the  idea  that  the  good  of  individuals  must  be  sub- 
ordinated to  the  good  of  the  community.  Here 
we  are  all  agreed.  But  we  come  at  once  to 
the  question  what  is  the  good  of  the  community, 
and  how  is  it  to  be  promoted? 

If  socialism  implies  a  belief  in  the  perfect 
equality  of  the  sexes,  then  the  Maker  of  the 
world  certainly  is  not  a  socialist,  for  He  has  given 
the  two  sexes  different  faculties,  and  imposed  on 
them  different  tasks.  If  socialism  wishes  to 
abolish  the  family,  it  must  discover  motives  suffi- 
cient to  induce  men  and  women,  apart  from  the 
old  family  motives,  to  observe  the  rules  of 
morality  and  to  greatly  desire  to  have  descend- 
ants. If  socialism  wishes  to  make  the  state  the 
universal  employer  it  must  find  out  how  to  secure 
energy  and  honesty  in  those  who  direct,  and 
docility  and  industry  among  those  who  labour, 
apart  from  the  hard  discipline  of  the  struggle  for 
existence  which  at  present  keeps  society  going, 
whether  better  or  worse.  It  is  possible  that  as 
we  have  superseded  sailing  vessels  by  steamships, 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     87 

and  horse  traction  by  motor  traction,  so  we  may 
be  able  some  day  to  discover  an  organization  of 
society  which  will  be  more  economic  of  force  and 
productive  of  better  results  than  the  organizations 
of  the  past.  But  the  only  safe  road  to  the  goal 
is  the  same  road  which  has  been  followed  in  our 
improvements  in  communication.  First  we  had 
the  man  of  science  in  his  laboratory  making  ex- 
periments, weighing  results,  eliminating  friction, 
examining  materials.  Then  we  had  modest  ex- 
periments on  a  small  scale,  at  first  experiments 
with  mere  playthings;  and  these  experiments 
gradually  grew  in  scale  because  they  succeeded, 
until,  in  branch  after  branch  of  transport,  the  new 
methods  competed  with  the  old,  and  fairly  beat 
them  out  of  the  field.  When  motors  were  first 
heard  of  we  did  not  proceed  to  slaughter  all  our 
horses,  and  when  aviation  is  beginning  to  succeed 
we  do  not  break  up  our  railways.  Yet  that  is  the 
way  in  which  some  of  the  speculative  schools  of 
socialism  would  go  to  work  on  the  organization 
of  society.  Newton,  the  greatest  of  our  men  of 
science,  claimed  to  excel  his  contemporaries  only 
in  patience  or  persistency.  And  it  is  this  active 
patience,  patience  in  research,  patience  in  con- 
forming to  the  conditions  of  the  world,  patience 
in  enduring  what  cannot  be  altered,  and  in 
gradually  changing  what  can  be  altered,  which 
must  be  the  essential  feature  of  all  reform,  unless 
we  would  fling  away  all  the  rich  results  of  the 


88    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

striving  and  sufferings  of  our  ancestors,  and  run 
the  risk  of  relapse  into  a  state  of  barbarism. 

I  think  we  may  in  this  matter  see  clearly  the 
contrast  between  the  rationalist  and  the  scientific 
tendencies  in  the  remoulding  of  society.     In  the 
French    Revolution,    for   example,    the    guiding 
principle  was  a  regard  for  certain  assumed  human 
rights.     In  order  to  secure  those  rights  every- 
thing was  thrown  into  the  melting  pot.     No  doubt 
the  world  learned  a  great  deal  of  wisdom  from 
the  reckless  experiments  of  those  stormy  days. 
But  to  what  did  they  lead  ?     To  Napoleon,  and  a 
militarism  which  deluged  Europe  with  blood,  and 
brought  upon  France  a  depression  from  which 
she    has    not    yet    recovered.      The    custom    of 
science  when  it  sees  things  going  amiss,  is  not  to 
leap  like  Curtius  into  the  opening  gulf,  but  to 
interrogate  history  and  experience,  to  see  when 
such  evils  before  existed,  and  how  they  were  met, 
where  such  evils  are  in  our  day  not  to  be  found, 
and    the    reason    why.      This    method    requires 
patience  both  passive  and  active,  passive  patience 
to  bear  the  evils  until  we  have  fair  prospect  of  a 
remedy,   and   active   patience   or  persistence   to 
bring  together  all  the  facts,  to  examine  theory 
after  theory  and  make  experiment  after  experi- 
ment on  a  small  scale,  until  we  find  a  way  which 
is  certainly  a  thoroughfare.     A  science  which  is 
at  home  amid  the  facts  of  geology  and  of  past 
history  will  strongly  believe  in  the  possibilities 
of  progress;  but  it  will  also  be  very  anxious  not 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     89 

hastily  to  throw  away  anything  which  has  in  it  the 
germs  of  future  amelioration. 

Here,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  greatest  task  of 
our  Universities  in  the  immediate  future.  Be- 
sides keeping  up  the  standard  of  literary  culture 
on  the  one  hand,  and  studying  physical  science 
largely  with  a  view  to  practical  results  on  the 
other,  we  want  to  found  great  schools  of  human 
science,  schools  not  starting  with  any  settled 
theories,  but  working  hard  to  map  out  the  field, 
to  find  the  true  line  of  progress  in  past  history,  to 
discern  of  what  human  nature  is  capable,  and  of 
what  it  is  incapable.  We  need  both  research,  and 
as  a  corrective  to  research  the  foundation  of 
classes  of  workers  who  may  test  the  practical 
validity  of  the  theories  formulated  by  researchers. 
And  we  need  these  schools  especially  in  Eng- 
land. For  we  are  told  by  all  our  best  advisers 
that  England  is  falling  behind  other  countries  in 
method  and  in  practical  efficiency.  In  past  days, 
from  the  time  of  Locke  to  that  of  Darwin,  great 
scientific  movements  have  commonly  started  in 
England.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not 
at  least  equal  other  nations  in  exploring  the  vast 
field  of  the  orderly  knowledge  of  mankind. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  task  will  naturally  fall 
rather  to  the  older  Universities,  where  Humani- 
ties flourish,  while  the  newer  foundations  neces- 
sarily devote  themselves  to  studies  of  more  imme- 
diate practical  application.  There  is  no  doubt 
force  in  this  suggestion.  But  the  older  Universi- 


90   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

ties  are  dominated,  in  a  degree  which  is  hardly 
realized  by  those  who  have  not  taught  there,  by 
traditional  ways  of  thought.  They  do  not  greatly 
encourage  research;  and  the  energies  of  their 
ablest  men  are  mostly  absorbed  in  teaching  on 
well-established  lines.  The  newer  Universities 
have  at  least  greater  freedom,  and  greater  power 
of  self-adaptation  to  new  needs.  I  remember 
reading  the  first  address  of  your  Chancellor  to 
this  University ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  although 
he  was  no  professed  savant,  yet  he  had  a  broader 
and  a  saner  notion  of  the  functions  of  a  University 
than  was  usually  current  in  the  older  academic 
bodies.  You  are  the  brain  of  a  great  working 
community ;  and  such  a  community  needs  to  think 
not  only  of  business  success,  but  of  all  sides  of 
human  life  and  action. 

I  know  that  you  have  in  Birmingham  had  your 
attention  called  before  to  the  overwhelming  im- 
portance of  human  science.  Some  of  my  dis- 
tinguished predecessors,  Sir  Francis  Galton  and 
Mr.  Karl  Pearson  have  spoken  here  with  the 
greatest  ability  and  the  highest  authority  on  the 
question  of  heredity,  and  other  subjects  which  are 
on  the  border-line  between  biology  and  the 
humanities.  Doubtless  these  and  similar  studies 
are  pursued  here  in  some  degree  by  teachers.  It 
is  difficult  to  over-express  our  obligations  to  those 
who  carry  on  researches  which  have  such  direct 
bearing  on  the  future  of  mankind.  In  such 
matters  as  these  I  am  only  a  learner.  But  I  have 


RATIONALISM   AND   SCIENCE     91 

given  serious  attention  to  two  branches  of  the 
group  of  historic  studies,  those  concerned  with 
Ancient  Greece  and  the  Origins  of  Christianity. 
Even  in  purely  historic  studies  such  as  these  we 
greatly  need  a  new  spirit  and  better  methods. 
Above  all  we  need  to  feel  that  the  whole  history 
of  the  human  race  is  one ;  and  that  everything  that 
has  ever  happened  in  the  human  field  may  be  a 
light  to  the  present.  While  investigators, 
hemmed  in  by  the  narrow  space  of  human  life, 
can  but  master  the  phenomena  of  some  few 
phases  of  history  or  some  aspects  of  society,  all 
are  really  working  together  for  a  common  end. 

I  have  tried  to  shew  that  whereas  great  im- 
pulses and  ideas  come  from  the  unseen,  the 
manner  of  their  working  in  the  world  falls  within 
the  field  of  conscious  thought  and  endeavour. 
And  intellect  is  turning  more  and  more  from  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  them  with  accepted  prin- 
ciples, after  the  manner  of  the  leaders  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  framers  of  the 
American  constitution,  towards  the  consideration 
of  their  results  in  experience.  In  our  days 
democracy  has  arrived,  and  has  come  to  stay. 
We  have  to  educate  our  masters,  and  in  the  first 
place  to  instruct  them  as  to  what  really  has  hap- 
pened, and  does  happen  in  the  world.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  average  citizen,  the  man 
who  now  governs  the  world,  will  soon  be  more 
ready  to  listen  to  the  proved  results  of  experience 
than  to  any  sort  of  a  priori  appeal.  To  go  no 


92    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

further  than  to  the  last  general  election,  it  was 
very  notable  how  on  most  platforms  the  appeal 
was  to  results  and  consequences.  The  average 
man  is  being  more  and  more  completely  trained 
to  the  notion  that  there  is  a  fixed  order  in  the 
world,  and  that  events  do  not  happen  at  random. 
He  is  now  ready  in  matters  of  physical  science  to 
take  the  word  of  those  who  have  been  trained, 
those  who  really  know.  He  does  not  perhaps  yet 
recognize  so  completely  that  the  events  of  history 
and  of  human  society  may  also  be  matters  of 
definite  knowledge,  and  considering  how  unripe 
is  most  of  the  fruit  of  the  knowledge  of  mankind 
which  is  offered  him,  we  can  scarcely  wonder  that 
he  does  not  altogether  relish  it.  That  only  shews 
how  much  remains  to  be  done  in  this  field.  We 
are  used  to  hearing  men  set  forth  the  patent  evils 
of  society,  and  then  at  once  leap  to  the  propound- 
ing of  some  remedy  warranted  to  set  everything 
right.  It  is  the  same  procedure  with  which  we  are 
familiar  in  the  advertisements  of  quack  medi- 
cines. '  Do  you  feel  languid,  out  of  spirits ;  have 
you  internal  pains?  Then  try  our  pill  or  our 
ointment.'  In  the  same  way  those  who  see  the 
evils  of  modern  society  jump  at  some  remedy, 
some  form  of  socialism  it  may  be,  or  eugenics,  or 
female  suffrage;  and  set  it  up  as  a  general 
remedy.  The  intermediate  stage  of  studying  in 
what  particular  way  each  evil  may  be  met  they 
overlook.  What  has  to  be  insisted  upon  is  that 
between  the  perception  of  an  evil  and  the  pro- 


RATIONALISM   AND    SCIENCE     93 

pounding  of  a  remedy  there  is  need  for  infinite 
care  and  investigation,  a  process  which  must  not 
be  slurred  over  or  abridged,  and  which  involves 
the  keenest  exercise  of  the  wisest  among  us  for 
generations.  Here  is  the  opportunity  of  our 
Universities. 

In  human  science  it  is  far  more  important  than 
even  in  the  science  of  the  material  world  to  avoid 
superficiality  and  extreme  specialism.  As  man 
is  an  unit,  all  the  studies  which  bear  upon  him 
and  explain  him  must  be  kept  together  and  their 
results  harmonized.  Not  good  but  evil  would 
result,  if  the  recognition  of  human  science  were 
to  take  the  form  either  of  teaching  superficial 
rules  from  books  about  psychology  or  pedagogy, 
or  of  encouraging  a  minute  subdivision  of  the 
field  into  small  plots  in  which  jealous  specialists 
should  sit  keeping  watch  against  any  infringe- 
ment of  their  domain,  and  fully  convinced,  each 
of  them,  that  he  alone  possesses  the  key  of  know- 
ledge which  should  guide  conduct.  As  I  have 
observed,  man  is  an  unit,  and  whether  as  an  indi- 
vidual or  in  an  assembly  he  must  pursue  one 
course  and  repudiate  other  courses.  The 
grounds  of  action  have  to  be  taken  from  a  number 
of  different  studies;  the  line  of  action  is  neces- 
sarily a  compromise,  and  influenced  by  a  great 
variety  of  motives.  Hence  the  narrow  specialist 
who  thinks  the  particular  results  at  which  he  has 
arrived  ought  at  once  to  dictate  conduct,  is  as 
fatal  a  leader  as  are  the  rationalist  charlatans  of 


94  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

whom  I  have  spoken.  Great  collators  of  results 
and  systematizers  of  knowledge  are  a  prime 
necessity  of  the  situation.  And  they  will  need 
the  highest  faculties  which  human  nature  can 
grow. 

I  should  not  of  course  commit  the  absurdity  of 
suggesting  that  all  attempts  at  improving  social 
conditions  should  be  suspended  until  we  have  a 
more  precise  knowledge  of  what  their  results  are 
likely  to  be.  Practical  experiments  must  go  on, 
and  they  must  needs  do  something  to  increase 
the  bounds  of  our  knowledge,  whether  they  are 
successful  or  not.  But  I  would  venture  to  urge 
the  great  need  of  more  complete  organization  and 
better  endowment  for  human  studies. 

If  the  question  be  asked  how  these  studies  may 
be  organized,  the  answer  seems  to  be  that  as  they 
develop  they  will  organize  themselves,  and  each 
branch  of  the  tree  will  find  its  due  place.  In 
human  science  as  in  natural  science  one  cannot 
cultivate  any  part  of  the  field  without  increasing 
the  productiveness  of  the  whole.  A  man  who 
gives  most  of  his  life  to  the  discovery  of  a  new 
chemical  element,  and  a  man  who  gives  most  of 
his  life  to  the  examination  of  the  marks  on  the 
backs  of  crabs  or  to  the  respiratory  organs  of  frogs 
are  equally  the  children  of  science,  and  workers 
in  the  cause  of  light.  In  the  same  way  men  will 
equally  be  of  service  to  historic  science  whether 
they  study  the  antiquities  of  Greece,  or  the  insti- 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE     95 

tutions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  faculties  of  man 
or  the  working  of  economic  laws.  All  knowledge 
is  really  one;  and  all  men  of  science  are  what 
Comte  called  them,  in  a  sense  the  priests  of 
humanity. 

But  to  come  for  a  moment  to  a  more  practical 
point  of  view,  I  may  venture  to  affirm,  from  the 
experience  of  half  a  life  time  in  University  teach- 
ing, that  for  the  due  cultivation  of  any  branch  of 
science  in  a  University  two  things  are  necessary. 
First  institutes,  workships  with  a  settled  place  for 
working,  with  apparatus  of  all  sorts  and  specialist 
libraries.  For  such  purposes  an  ordinary  library 
is  insufficient;  the  books  must  be  within  reach, 
and  one  must  be  able  to  turn  them  over  and  criti- 
cize them  in  the  presence  of  fellow-workers. 
The  second  thing  that  is  necessary  is  research 
studentships,  that  the  workers  may  at  least  be 
able  to  live  while  they  devote  themselves  for  the 
good  of  the  community.  Whether  any  such  insti- 
tutes exist  at  Birmingham  I  know  not;  but  I  am 
sure  that  sufficient  provision  of  this  kind  is  not 
made  in  any  of  our  English  Universities.  For 
work  in  anthropology,  archaeology,  statistics, 
psychology,  workshops  are  as  necessary  as  they 
are  for  chemistry  or  anatomy. 

It  may  be  regarded  as  a  paradox  if  one  affirms 
that  studies  which  deal  with  the  remote  past  or 
with  obscure  barbarous  tribes  in  Africa  or 
Australia  have  much  to  do  with  practical  ethics 


96    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

and  sociology.  In  the  pursuit  of  physical  science 
men  have  passed  this  stage  of  objection.  No  one 
would  find  it  difficult  to  understand  that  technical 
chemical  researches  may  have  a  bearing  on  the 
selection  of  the  food  we  eat,  or  that  biological 
studies  like  those  of  Darwin  may  have  great  value 
in  the  field  of  human  action  and  morals.  Why 
then  should  we  doubt  that  special  and  minute 
studies  in  history  and  psychology  may  be  a  guide 
to  conduct  in  the  present?  In  all  branches  of 
science  one  pursues  the  truth  for  its  own  sake; 
but  one  reaches  a  result  of  practical  advantage, 
a  far  richer  result  probably  than  one  could  ever 
have  attained  by  limiting  one's  investigation  to 
what  appeared  to  be  fruitful  subjects. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  this.  Three  appeals 
are  possible  in  justification  of  lines  of  action. 
The  first,  that  to  authority,  is  passing  out  of 
favour.  The  second,  that  to  fixed  principles, 
must  always  be  of  value  to  all  who  try  to  think 
consistently :  but  in  the  haste  and  confusion  of 
modern  life  it  does  not  convince  people  as  it  used. 
The  third,  that  to  fact  and  experience,  falls  in 
very  much  with  the  tendencies  of  the  times;  and 
therefore  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  those  who 
have  leisure  and  intelligence  to  organize  it,  to 
endow  it,  to  give  it  a  great  place  in  our  Universi- 
ties. If  it  be  taken  up  in  a  rash  and  hasty  mood, 
it  may  lead  the  human  race  into  infinite  trouble. 
But  if  taken  up  in  the  true  spirit  of  science, 
modest,  slow  to  affirmation,  given  to  testing  again 


RATIONALISM    AND    SCIENCE     97 

and  again  every  result,  it  may  furnish  the  spirit  of 
progress  with  data  of  inestimable  value,  and  give 
us  in  time  a  complete  chart  of  the  ocean  of  human 
life  over  which  we  all  have  to  guide  our  course. 


99 


LIFE  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS.* 
By  Prof.  Henri  Bergs  on. 

Generally  speaking,  when  a  lecture  is  dedi- 
cated, as  this  is,  to  a  thinker  or  scientist  whose 
name  it  bears,  the  lecturer  has  to  make  an  effort, 
at  times  an  effort  of  some  difficulty,  to  maintain 
himself,  by  the  choice  of  his  subject,  in  the  sphere 
of  interests  of  this  thinker  or  scientist.  But,  for 
a  lecture  associated  with  the  great  name  of 
Huxley,  no  such  effort  is  necessary.  Rather,  in- 
deed, we  may  ask  what  scientific  question,  what 
philosophic  problem,  is  there  which  did  not 
interest  that  luminous  intellect — one  of  the 
broadest  and  most  comprehensive  that  nine- 
teenth-century England  produced,  fertile  in  great 
intellects  as  it  was? 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  however,  that  the  ques- 
tion of  consciousness  in  general — of  its  relations 
with  nature  and  life — corresponds  fairly  well  with 
one  of  the  main  lines  of  Huxley's  thought,  with 
one  of  his  chief  pre-occupations.  And  as  I  per- 
sonally know  none  more  important  nor  more 
crucial  in  the  whole  range  of  philosophy,  that  is 
the  subject  I  have  chosen. 

*  The  "  Huxley  Lecture,"  delivered  at  the  University  of 
Birmingham,  May  29,   1911,  with  some  additions. 


ioo  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

But,  before  attacking  the  problem  itself,  there 
is  one  point  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention 
— namely,  the  meagre  light  thrown  on  this  prob- 
lem by  the  "  systems  "  of  philosophy  properly 
so-called.  What  are  we?  What  are  we  doing 
here?  Whence  do  we  come  and  whither  do  we 
go?  These,  it  seems,  are  the  essential  and  vital 
questions,  the  questions  of  supreme  interest, 
which  first  present  themselves  to  the  philosopher 
and  which  are,  or  should  be,  the  very  cause  of 
philosophy's  existence.  But  not  at  all.  If  we 
consider  the  enormous  work  done  in  philosophy 
from  antiquity  down  to  the  present  time,  we  find 
that  attention  has  been  engrossed  with  a  host  of 
special  problems  in  psychology,  in  morals,  in 
logic,  as  well  as  a  crowd  of  very  general  meta- 
physical speculations  on  the  more  or  less  hypo- 
thetic principles  of  things;  and  then  again  we 
find  a  welter  of  critical  reflections  on  the  manner 
and  method  of  knowledge,  and  finally  a  multi- 
tude of  works  of  history  and  discussion  which 
give  us  the  opinions  of  thinkers  on  the  opinions 
of  others;  but  we  perceive  that  those  problems 
which  interest  us  as  human  beings  above  all  else, 
and  which  are  for  us  the  vital  problems,  have 
very  seldom  been  squarely  faced.  I  mean  that 
the  solution  given  has  been  thrown  out  in  pass- 
ing, as  a  consequence  of  certain  very  general  and 
highly  abstract  conceptions  of  Being,  of  Thought, 
of  Extensity,  of  Substance,  etc.  It  seems  as  if 
philosophy  thought  it  would  be  slighting  the 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     101 

claims  of  these  problems,  failing  ih; iespiect" -fa 
them,  to  study  them  in  the  same  way  as  an 
ordinary  question  of  biology  or  history,  which 
cannot  be  resolved  save  in  an  approximate,  im- 
perfect and  provisional  manner.  No;  it  seems 
that  for  the  answer  to  these  great  problems  some 
great  system  is  necessary  in  which  solemnly  and 
immutably  it  may  take  its  place,  as  a  geometrical 
theorem  takes  its  final  place  in  a  book  of  Euclid. 
The  disadvantage  of  this  way  of  proceeding  is 
that  we  thus  put  in  the  second  place  problems 
which  should  be  in  the  first;  but,  besides  that,  we 
render  the  solution  of  these  problems  dependent 
on  general  systems  of  philosophy,  with  which  they 
stand  and  fall.  And  then  the  solution  shares  in 
the  strictness  and  rigidity  of  the  system  to  which 
it  is  attached;  it  must  be  taken  or  left,  just  as  it 
is,  and  admits  of  no  gradual  development  or 
perfecting. 

Either  I  am  much  deceived  or  the  future 
belongs  to  a  philosophy  which  will  give  back  to 
these  problems  their  rightful  place — the  first! — 
which  will  face  them  in  themselves  /and  for  them- 
selves, directly;  which,  no  longer  returning  to 
these  questions  an  answer  deduced  from  syste- 
matic principles  (a  self-styled  "  final  "  solution, 
to  be  replaced  in  its  turn  by  other  solutions  which 
will  claim  equal  finality),  will  be  gradually  per- 
fectible, open  to  corrections,  to  retouchings  and 
unlimited  amplifications;  a  philosophy  that  will 
no  longer  pretend  to  have  reached  a  solution  of 


102  'HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

mathematical  certainty  (which  mathematical  cer- 
tainty, in  such  a  case,  must  always  be  deceptive), 
but  will  be  content  (like  a  good  number  of 
sciences  at  the  present  time)  with  a  sufficiently 
high  degree  of  probability,  with  a  probability 
capable  of  being  pushed  farther  and  farther  till 
it  becomes  so  great  that  it  may  end  by  becoming 
practically  equivalent  to  certainty.  In  short,  I 
am  of  opinion  that  there  is  no  absolutely  certain 
principle  from  which  the  answer  to  these  ques- 
tions can  be  deduced  in  a  mathematical  way. 
Nor  does  there  exist  a  privileged  fact,  or  a  col- 
lection of  privileged  facts,  from  which  the  answer 
can  be  inferred,  as,  for  example,  occurs  in  a 
problem  in  physics  or  chemistry.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  in  a  great  number  of  different  fields 
there  is  a  great  number  of  collections  of  facts, 
each  of  which,  considered  apart,  gives  us  a  direc- 
tion in  which  the  answer  to  the  problem  may  be 
sought — a  direction  only.  But  it  is  a  great  thing 
to  have  even  a  direction,  and  still  more  to  have 
several  directions,  for  at  the  precise  point  where 
these  directions  converge  might  be  found  the 
solution  we  are  seeking.  What  we  possess  mean- 
while are  lines  of  facts,  none  of  which  goes  far 
enough,  none  of  which  goes  right  up  to  the  point 
which  interests  us  and  at  which  we  want  to  place 
ourselves ;  but  these  lines  may  be  more  and  more 
prolonged,  and  they,  moreover,  already  suffi- 
ciently indicate  to  us,  by  the  ideal  prolongation 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     103 

that  is  open  to  us,  the  region  in  which  the  answer 
to  the  problem  will  be  found. 

Now,  it  is  some  of  these  lines  that  I  desire  to 
follow  with  you  to-day.  Each  of  them,  taken 
apart,  will  give,  I  repeat,  nothing  but  a  proba- 
bility ;  but  all  together,  by  converging  on  the  same 
point,  may  give  us  an  accumulation  of  probabili- 
ties which  will  gradually  approximate  scientific 
certainty. 

Here  is  the  first  line  I  wish  to  follow,  the  first 
aspect  of  the  question  that  I  wish  to  point  out  to 
you.  What  we  call  "  the  mind  "  is,  before  all, 
something  conscious — it  is  consciousness.  But 
what  do  we  mean  by  consciousness  ?  You  rightly 
guess  that  I  am  not  going  to  define  this  simple 
thing  which  eludes  all  definition,  and  which  every- 
one can  experience.  But,  without  exactly  giving 
a  definition  which  would  be  much  less  clear  than 
the  thing  defined,  we  may  at  least  indicate  its 
most  obvious  and  most  striking  character.  Con- 
sciousness signifies,  above  all,  memory.  The 
memory  may  not  be  very  extensive;  it  may 
embrace  only  a  very  small  section  of  the  past, 
nothing  indeed  but  the  immediate  past;  but,  in 
order  that  there  may  be  consciousness  at  all, 
something  of  this  past  must  be  retained,  be  it 
nothing  but  the  moment  just  gone  by.  A  con- 
sciousness which  retained  nothing  of  the  past 
would  be  a  consciousness  that  died  and  was  re- 
born every  instant — it  would  be  no  longer 
consciousness.  Such  is  just  the  condition  of 


104   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

matter ;  or,  at  least,  such  is  just  the  way  we  repre- 
sent matter  when  we  wish  to  oppose  it  to 
consciousness.  Leibnitz  defined  matter — that  is 
to  say,  what  is  not  consciousness — by  calling  it  a 
momentary  mind,  an  instantaneous  consciousness. 
And,  in  fact,  an  instantaneous  consciousness  is 
just  what  we  call  unconsciousness.  All  conscious- 
ness, then,  is  memory;  all  consciousness  is  a 
preservation  and  accumulation  of  the  past  in  the 
present. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  all  consciousness  is  an 
anticipation  of  the  future.  Analyse  your  mental 
state  when  you  hear  someone  speaking :  you  are 
intent  on  what  is  being  said,  but  also  on  what  is 
coming;  and  even  the  present  only  interests  you 
in  so  far  as  it  will  profit  the  immediate  future. 
We  are  essentially  drawn  and,  as  it  were,  inclined 
towards  the  future,  because  we  are  creatures  of 
action,  and  every  action  is  like  a  leap  into  the 
future — into  the  next  moment. 

So  that  to  remember  the  immediate  past  and  to 
anticipate  the  immediate  future  is  the  most  strik- 
ing function  of  consciousness.  Indeed,  what  we 
call  the  present  instant  is  something  that  hardly 
exists  except  in  theory,  for  it  has  already  ceased 
to  exist  when  it  attracts  our  attention.  Try  to 
'catch  the  present  instant,  it  has  already  gone,  it 
is  already  far  away.  Practically,  what  we  call 
our  present  is  something  that  has  a  certain  length 
or  breadth  of  duration,  and  is  composed  of  two 
halves,  one  being  our  immediate  past,  the  other 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     105 

our  immediate  future.  What  we  feel  ourselves 
to  be  at  any  given  moment  is  what  we  were  just 
before  and  what  we  are  just  about  to  be  :  we  re- 
cline on  our  past  and  incline  towards  our  future, 
and  that  reclining  and  inclining  seem  to  be  the 
very  essence  of  our  consciousness.  So  that  con- 
sciousness is,  above  all,  a  hyphen,  a  tie  between 
past  and  future.  Now  what  is  the  use  of  such  a 
tie,  and  what  is  consciousness  called  upon  to  do? 
To  reply  to  this  question,  we  must  first  ask  what 
are,  in  the  whole  of  Nature,  the  creatures  which, 
to  all  appearances,  are  conscious  beings.  To 
tell  the  truth,  in  order  to  be  absolutely  sure  that  a 
being  is  conscious  like  ourselves,  we  ought  to 
penetrate  it,  to  be  it.  Here,  again,  if  we  seek  for 
mathematical  certainty,  we  shall  obtain  nothing, 
for  you  cannot  even  be  mathematically  sure  that 
I,  who  am  speaking  to  you  at  this  moment,  possess 
a  consciousness.  I  might  be  a  well-constructed 
automaton — going,  coming,  speaking — without 
internal  consciousness,  and  the  very  words  by 
which  I  declare  at  this  moment  that  I  am  a  con- 
scious being  might  be  words  pronounced  without 
consciousness.  However,  though  this  is  mathe- 
matically possible,  and  consequently  the  existence 
of  my  consciousness  cannot  be  for  you  a  matter 
of  mathematical  certainty,  I  think  that  it  is  suffi- 
ciently probable  for  you.  The  truth  is,  that 
whenever  you  assume  consciousness  in  a  being 
other  than  yourself,  you  infer  this  consciousness 
from  certain  outward  analogies  that  you  find 


io6    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

between  this  being  and  yourself.  So  let  us  follow 
up  this  reasoning  by  analogy,  and  ask  ourselves 
up  to  what  point  it  is  probable  that  consciousness 
may  be  imputed  to  nature,  and  at  what  point  it 
probably  stops  short. 

One  reply  sometimes  made  to  the  question  is 
this  :  In  ourselves,  consciousness  is  bound  up  in 
one  way  or  another  with  a  brain;  we  may  there- 
fore assume  the  presence  of  consciousness  in  all 
those  living  beings  in  whom  a  brain  is  found,  and 
in  those  alone.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will 
show  us  the  fallacy  of  this  reasoning.  For  in 
applying  elsewhere  this  mode  of  argument,  we 
might  as  well  say  :  digestion  in  us  is  bound  up 
with  a  stomach,  therefore  we  ought  to  attribute 
the  faculty  of  digestion  to  the  living  beings  who 
possess  stomachs,  and  to  those  alone.  Now  this 
would  be  absolutely  wrong,  for  living  beings  who 
have  no  stomachs  and  even  no  organs,  which  con- 
sist of  a  simple  protoplasmic  mass,  are  still  able 
to  digest.  Only,  in  proportion  as  the  organism 
becomes  more  perfect,  a  division  of  labour  is 
brought  about :  special  organs  are  destined  to 
diverse  functions  instead  of  the  whole  mass  doing 
all,  and  the  digestive  faculty  becomes  localised  in 
a  stomach  and  in  other  organs  which  accomplish 
it  better -,  whilst  the  rest  of  the  organism  renounces 
the  faculty,  having  got  rid  of  this  care  by  putting 
it  on  to  a  special  organ.  But  the  function  was 
previously  performed  in  the  undifferentiated 
organism  :  it  was  performed  all  over  it,  though 


LIFE  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     107 

with  less  precision.  Now,  without  doubt,  in  our- 
selves consciousness  is  bound  up  with  a  brain  in 
some  way,  but  as  we  descend  in  the  animal  scale 
we  see  the  brain  become  more  and  more  simpli- 
fied (as  also  does  the  whole  nervous  system),  and 
then  the  nervous  centres  separate  from  each  other, 
until  finally  the  nervous  elements  are  merged  in 
the  mass  of  undifferentiated  living  tissue.  Now, 
is  it  not  probable  that  if,  at  the  top  of  the  organic 
scale,  clear  and  distinct  consciousness  is  bound 
up  with  a  brain  and  a  highly  differentiated 
nervous  system,  consciousness  accompanies  this 
system  the  whole  length  of  the  descent,  and  that 
ultimately,  when  the  nervous  substance  is  merged 
in  the  rest  of  living  matter,  consciousness  itself  is 
diffused  in  the  whole  of  this  mass  :  diffused,  con- 
fused, weakened,  but  not  reduced  to  nothing? 
So  that,  in  the  end,  consciousness  might  exist  in 
Nature  wherever  there  is  living  matter.  At  least, 
it  is  not  impossible.  But  is  it  actually  the  case? 
I  believe  it  would  be  going  too  far,  and  here  is  a 
fresh  line  of  considerations  which  will,  I  think, 
lead  us  to  limit  this  conclusion  to  a  certain  degree. 
We  have  just  said  that  in  the  conscious  being 
that  we  know  best — namely,  man — consciousness 
appears  in  some  way  to  be  bound  up  with  a  brain. 
Since  in  this  case  it  is  through  a  brain  that  the 
consciousness  works,  and  since  the  work  is  thus 
performed  with  the  greatest  precision,  let  us 
glance  at  the  brain,  and  ask  ourselves  what  are  its 
most  obvious  functions.  The  brain,  as  you 


io8    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

know,  forms  part  of  a  whole  called  the  cerebro- 
spinal  nervous  system,  which,  in  addition  to  the 
brain  itself,  comprises  the  spinal  cord,  the  nerves, 
etc.  In  the  spinal  cord  are  set  up  mechanisms 
which  permit  the  various  parts  of  our  body  to 
perform  complicated  and  well  co-ordinated  move- 
ments. These  mechanisms  may  be  set  in  action 
without  the  intervention  of  the  brain,  under  the 
direct  influence  of  an  external  stimulus;  in  such 
a  case,  the  bodily  reaction  follows  immediately 
on  the  stimulation.  But  there  are  cases  in  which 
the  external  stimulus,  instead  of  obtaining  at 
once,  through  the  spinal  cord,  an  appropriate 
bodily  reaction,  goes  up  to  the  brain,  in  order  to 
come  down  again  thence  to  the  spinal  cord,  and 
only  then  obtains  from  the  cord  the  complex 
physical  movement.  Why  did  it  go  to  the  brain  ? 
And  what  has  it  gained  by  this  roundabout  pro- 
ceeding? A  glance  thrown  on  the  general  struc- 
ture of  the  brain  will  answer  these  questions. 
The  brain  is  in  communication  with  those 
mechanisms  of  the  spinal  cord  that  we  have  just 
referred  to,  and  can  send  to  any  one  of  them  the 
order  to  work.  Imagine  a  stimulation  coming  to 
the  brain  from  without,  by  the  eye,  ear  or  touch. 
The  brain  is  like  a  switch  having  the  faculty  of 
putting  the  current  thus  received  in  communica- 
tion with  one  or  other  of  the  motor  mechanisms  of 
the  spine,  chosen  at  will.  So  that  in  sum,  and 
broadly  speaking,  the  spinal  cord  is  a  storehouse 
of  ready-made  complex  actions,  and  the  brain  is 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     109 

the  organ  permitting  choice,  in  any  circumstances, 
of  that  particular  complex  action  which  is  appro- 
priate. The  brain  is  the  organ  of  choice. 

Now,  according  as  we  descend  in  the  animal 
scale,  we  see  that  the  functions  of  the  brain  and 
those  of  the  spinal  cord  become  less  differ- 
entiated, as  if  a  part  at  least  of  the  faculty  of 
choosing,  which  in  us  is  attached  to  the  brain,  had 
descended  to  the  spinal  cord.  In  this  latter, 
then,  we  see  that  the  mechanical  attachments  are 
fewer,  and  probably  also  constructed  with  less 
precision.  Finally,  it  seems  indeed  as  if  the  two 
functions,  the  one  an  absolutely  precise  auto- 
matism, the  other  an  absolute  faculty  of  choice, 
become  mingled,  and  blend  with  each  other  so 
thoroughly  that  when  we  arrive  at  organisms  in 
which  there  are  only  a  few  heaps  of  nerve-cells 
scattered  here  and  there,  and  even  more  so  when 
we  come  to  organisms  where  there  are  no  longer 
differentiated  nerve-cells,  we  are  faced  by  a 
living  substance  such  that  external  stimulus  pro- 
vokes from  it  a  reaction  both  undecided,  though 
not  altogether  chosen  (there  comes  in  the  element 
of  choice),  and  ill-defined  although  aiming  at  a 
certain  precision  (there  comes  in  the  element  of 
automatism).  Such  is  probably  the  condition  of 
an  amoeba — of  one  of  those  tiny  lumps  of  proto- 
plasmic jelly  you  can  see  with  the  microscope  in 
a  drop  of  water.  When  anything  that  can  be 
turned  into  food  floats  by,  the  amoeba  throws  out 
in  various  directions  protoplasmic  filaments 


no    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

which  draw  the  substance  towards  it.  These 
pseudopodia  are  temporary  organs,  ill-defined 
(there  comes  in  the  element  of  mechanism),  but 
everything  seems  to  happen  as  if  there  were  at 
least  a  rudiment  of  intention  on  the  part  of  the 
little  organism,  a  certain  choice  of  appropriate 
movements. 

It  appears,  therefore,  as  if  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom  of  the  animal  scale  there  is  present 
(although  the  lower  we  go,  the  more  vaguely  it 
is  seen)  the  faculty  of  choice,  and  more  particu- 
larly the  choice  of  action,  of  combined  move- 
ments, in  response  to  stimulation  arising  from 
without.  This  is  what  we  find  in  pursuing  our 
second  line  of  facts.  Now,  observe  that  the  point 
we  come  out  at  is  pretty  close  to  that  to  which  the 
first  line  led  us.  We  said,  you  will  remember, 
that  the  function  of  consciousness  seemed 
primarily  to  retain  the  past  and  to  anticipate  the 
future.  That  is  quite  natural  if  its  function  is  to 
preside  over  actions  which  are  chosen.  For 
choice  implies  that  one  thinks  of  what  is  to  be, — 
of  the  immediate  future, — with  a  view  to  creating 
this  future  to  some  extent;  and  that  cannot  be 
done  save  by  profiting  from  past  experience — by 
retaining  the  past  in  order  to  project  it  within  the 
future. 

But  all  this  gives  no  answer  as  yet  to  the  ques- 
tion we  put :  Does  consciousness  cover  the  whole 
domain  of  life?  and  if  it  does  not  extend  every- 
where, where  does  it  stop? 


LIFE  AND    CONSCIOUSNESS     in 

We  have  not  yet  the  answer  to  this  question,  it 
is  true;  but  we  are  getting  near  it.  For  if  con- 
sciousness implies  choice,  and  choice  amongst 
various  possible  actions,  consciousness  will  not 
be  found  presumably  in  organisms  that  do  not 
possess  the  power  of  free  action — the  power,  con- 
sequently, to  choose  between  several  actions.  In 
very  truth,  I  believe  no  living  organism  is  abso- 
lutely without  the  faculty  of  performing  actions 
and  moving  spontaneously;  for  we  see  that  even 
in  the  vegetable  world,  where  the  organism  is  for 
the  most  part  fixed  to  the  ground,  the  faculty  of 
motion  is  asleep  rather  than  absent  altogether. 
Sometimes  it  wakes  up,  just  when  it  is  likely  to 
be  useful.  Therefore,  in  principle,  this  faculty 
of  spontaneous  motion  probably  exists  in  every 
living  thing;  but,  in  actual  fact,  many  organisms 
have  given  it  up, — as,  for  example,  the  numerous 
animals  living  as  parasites  on  other  organisms, 
and  thus  able  to  get  their  food  on  the  spot,  and 
again,  almost  the  entire  vegetable  kingdom.  It 
seems  probable,  therefore,  and  this  is  my  last 
word  on  the  point,  that  consciousness  is  in  prin- 
ciple present  in  all  living  matter,  but  that  it  is 
dormant  or  atrophied  wherever  such  matter  re- 
nounces spontaneous  activity,  and  on  the  contrary 
that  it  becomes  more  intense,  more  complex,  more 
complete,  just  where  living  matter  trends  most  in 
the  direction  of  activity  and  movement.  Observe 
that  this  is  a  point  we  can  experience  in  ourselves. 
Precisely  as  our  actions  cease  to  be  spontaneous 


ii2    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

and  become  automatic,  consciousness  is  with- 
drawn from  them;  when  we  learn  a  new  physical 
exercise,  for  example,  and  have  to  decide  on  each 
of  our  motions  and  choose  that  which  is 
appropriate,  we  have  distinct  consciousness  of 
each.  As  we  get  used  to  the  exercise  and  it  be- 
comes automatic,  consciousness  fades  away. 
Again,  when  is  our  consciousness  most  acute, 
most  intensely  alive?  Is  it  not,  above  all,  at 
those  times  of  internal  crisis  when  we  are  hesi- 
tating between  several  possible  actions,  several 
lines  of  conduct  that  are  equally  possible  ?  Con- 
sciousness in  each  of  us,  then,  seems  to  express 
the  amount  of  choice,  or,  if  you  will,  of  creation, 
at  our  disposal  for  movements  and  activity. 
Analogy  authorises  us  to  infer  that  it  is  the  same 
in  the  whole  of  the  organised  world. 

Let  us  consider  living  matter,  then,  under  its 
simplest  form,  as  it  may  have  been  in  the  begin- 
ning :  a  simple  mass  of  protoplasmic  jelly  like 
that  of  an  amoeba.  This  mass  can  change  its 
shape  at  will — it  is  therefore  vaguely  conscious. 
Now,  in  order  to  develop  and  evolve,  two  courses 
are  open  to  it.  Either  it  may  follow  the  path 
leading  towards  movement,  action — action  grow- 
ing more  and  more  complex,  more  and  more 
deliberate  and  free  as  time  goes  on  :  this  means 
adventure  and  risk,  but  means  also  a  conscious- 
ness more  and  more  wide  awake  and  luminous. 
Or,  on  the  contrary,  giving  up  the  faculty  of 
movement  and  choice  that  it  possesses,  even 


LIFE   AND    CONSCIOUSNESS     113 

though  of  course  in  very  feeble  degree,  it  may 
decide  to  fix  itself  just  where  it  finds  suitable  con- 
ditions of  life  which  will  do  away  with  the  neces- 
sity of  going  to  seek  the  materials  it  requires  : 
that  means  an  assured  and  tranquil  life,  a  hum- 
drum sort  of  existence,  but  it  involves  the  drowsi- 
ness which  dogs  our  inactivity,  the  slumber  of 
consciousness.*  The  former  direction  corre- 
sponds in  the  main  to  the  line  of  animal  develop- 
ment (I  say  in  the  main,  because  many  species  of 
animals  give  up  their  mobility,  and  thus  probably 
also  their  consciousness);  the  latter,  in  the  main, 
is  proper  to  vegetables ;  again  I  say  "  in  the 
main,"  since  the  faculty  of  moving,  and  probably 
therefore  also  of  consciousness,  may  occasionally 
reawaken  in  vegetable  life. 

Now,  if  we  consider  from  this  standpoint  the 
entrance  of  life  in  the  world,  this  entrance  will 
appear  to  us  like  the  introduction,  into  the  world, 
of  something  that  encroaches  upon  inert  matter. 
In  the  non-living  unorganised  world,  if  this  were 
left  alone,  necessity  would  sit  enthroned.  In 
determinate  conditions  inert  matter  reacts  in  a 
determinate  way;  in  the  inanimate  world  nothing 
is  unforeseeable,  and  if  our  science  were  suf- 
ficiently advanced  we  should  be  able  to  foretell 
what  will  happen  there,  precisely  as  we  can  fore- 
tell the  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon.  In  short, 
inert  matter  is  subject  to  mathematical  necessity. 

*  See  on  this  subject  :  Cope,   The  Origin  of  the  Fittest, 
1887,  p.  76. 


ii4   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

But,  with  the  coming  of  life,  we  see  the  appear- 
ance of  indetermination.  A  living  being,  no 
matter  how  simple,  is  a  reservoir  of  indetermina- 
tion and  unforeseeability,  a  reservoir  of  possible 
actions  or,  in  a  word,  of  choice.  And  in  it,  too, 
we  find  that  faculty  of  imagining  future  eventuali- 
ties (or,  speaking  more  generally,  of  anticipating 
the  future),  and  at  the  same  time  of  storing  up 
the  past  for  that  purpose,  which  is  the  faculty  of 
consciousness. 

If  this  be  so,  consciousness  and  matter  would 
appear  to  be  antagonistic  forces,  which,  neverthe- 
less, come  to  a  mutual  understanding  and  manage 
somehow  to  get  on  together.  They  are  antagon- 
istic in  this,  that  matter  is  theoretically  the  realm 
of  fatality,  while  consciousness  is  essentially  that 
of  liberty ;  and  yet  life,  which  is  nothing  but  con- 
sciousness using  matter  for  its  purposes,  succeeds 
in  reconciling  them.  Life,  therefore,  must  be 
something  which  avails  itself  of  a  certain  elasticity 
in  matter — slight  in  amount  as  this  probably  is — 
and  turns  it  to  the  profit  of  liberty  by  stealing  into 
whatever  infinitesimal  fraction  of  indetermination 
that  inert  matter  may  present.  Now  I  believe 
that  this  twofold  conclusion  is  precisely  what  we 
shall  come  to  after  following  certain  other  lines 
of  facts,  and  that  in  following  these  lines  we  may, 
moreover,  catch  a  glimpse  at  once  of  how  con- 
sciousness finds  matter  an  obstacle,  and  how,  not- 
withstanding, it  succeeds  in  making  use  of  it.  I 
will  begin  with  the  last  point. 


LIFE  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     115 

If  we  ask  ourselves  how  a  conscious  animal 
succeeds  in  obtaining  from  matter — that  is  to  say, 
from  its  body — the  execution  of  movements  on 
which  it  has  decided,  we  find  that  its  method  con- 
sists in  making  use  of  special  substances  which 
might  be  called  "  explosives."  These  substances 
are  the  foodstuffs,  more  particularly  those  called 
ternary,  the  essential  elements  of  which  are 
carbon,  oxygen  and  hydrogen.  In  these  food- 
stuffs is  stored  up  a  considerable  amount  of 
potential  energy,  ready  to  burst  out  suddenly, 
like  the  energy  stored  up  in  gunpowder.  This 
energy  has  been  slowly,  gradually,  borrowed  from 
the  sun  by  plants ;  and  the  animal  which  feeds  on 
a  plant,  or  on  another  animal  that  has  fed  on  a 
plant,  or  on  an  animal  that  has  fed  on  another 
animal  that  has  fed  on  a  plant,  etc.,  thus  passes 
into  his  own  body  an  explosive  made  by  life 
through  a  storage  of  solar  energy :  when  this 
animal  performs  voluntary  movements,  it  does  so 
by  simply  producing  the  infinitesimal  spark  which 
sets  off  the  explosive — by,  as  it  were,  just  brush- 
ing the  trigger  of  a  pistol  and  thus  setting  free  a 
considerable  force  in  the  direction  chosen  at  will. 
Now  if,  in  the  beginning,  the  first  living  beings 
swayed  between  animal  and  vegetable  conditions, 
sharing  at  once  in  both  one  and  the  other,  it  is 
because  life  at  its  origin  had  to  perform  the 
double  work  of  making  the  explosive  and  turning 
it  to  account.  In  proportion  as  plants  and 
animals  differentiated,  life  split  up  into  two  king- 


n6  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

doms,  of  which  one,  the  less  concerned  with 
movement,  was  more  concerned  with  making  the 
explosive,  whilst  the  other  confined  itself  to  mak- 
ing- use  of  it.  Nevertheless,  the  essence  of  life 
seems  to  be  to  secure  that  matter,  by  a  process 
necessarily  very  slow  and  difficult,  should  store 
up  energy  ready  for  life  afterwards  to  expend 
this  energy  suddenly  in  free  movements.  Now, 
what  precisely  would  a  free  cause  do — a  cause 
incapable  of  forcing  the  necessity  of  matter,  or 
only  able  to  force  it  to  an  infinitesimal  extent,  and 
which,  nevertheless,  were  desirous  of  producing 
movements  of  increasingly  greater  power?  It 
would  act  in  precisely  this  way.  It  would  arrange 
so  as  merely  to  have  to  press,  as  it  were,  the 
trigger  of  a  pistol  in  which  there  would  be  no 
friction,  or  to  furnish  an  infinitesimal  spark,  profit- 
ing by  an  energy  that  it  would  have  gradually 
accumulated  by  turning  every  movement  to 
account. 

But  we  arrive  at  the  same  conclusion  if  we  re- 
gard the  living  and  conscious  being  along  a  dif- 
ferent line  of  facts — not  on  the  side  of  "  choice," 
but  on  that  of  "  memory."  By  what  sign  do  we 
recognise  in  current  experience  a  "  man  of 
action," — I  mean  a  man  able  to  impress  his  mark 
on  the  events,  large  or  small,  amongst  which  he 
evolves  ?  Surely  by  the  fact  that  he  can  take  in, 
at  a  single  glance,  a  great  number  of  things, 
especially  a  great  number  of  previous  happen- 
ings. He  seizes  all  these  in  a  single  perception 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     117 

which  instructs  him  for  the  action  he  prepares. 
The  more  successive  events  he  seizes  in  this 
single  glance,  the  better  he  succeeds  in  domin- 
ating them.  Now,  if  we  consider  consciousness 
confronted  with  matter,  we  find  that  it  is  charac- 
terised by  just  this  fact,  that  in  an  interval  which 
for  it  is  infinitely  short,  and  which  constitutes  one 
of  our  "  instants,"  it  seizes  under  an  indivisible 
form  millions  and  billions  of  events  that  succeed 
each  other  in  inert  matter.  Yes,  that  indivisible 
sensation  of  light  which  I  have  at  this  moment,  if 
I  open  my  eyes  for  a  single  instant,  is  the  con- 
densation of  an  immensely  long  history  unrolling 
itself  in  the  world  of  matter :  there  are,  in  that 
single  instant,  billions  of  successive  vibrations — 
that  is  to  say,  a  series  of  events  such  that,  if  I 
wished  to  count  them  even  with  the  utmost 
rapidity,  it  would  require  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  years  for  the  enumeration.  It  is  this 
immense  history  that  I  seize  all  at  once  under  the 
pictorial  form  of  a  very  brief  sensation  of  light. 
And  we  could  say  just  the  same  of  all  our  other 
sensations.  Sensation,  which  is  the  point  at 
which  consciousness  touches  matter,  is,  then,  the 
condensation,  in  the  duration  peculiar  to  this  con- 
sciousness, of  a  history  which  in  itself, — in  the 
world  of  matter, — is  something  infinitely  diluted, 
and  which  occupies  enormous  periods  of  what 
might  be  called  the  duration  of  things.  So, 
looked  at  from  the  side  of  sensation,  conscious- 
ness gives  us  the  same  impression  as  it  did  just 


n8  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

now  from  the  side  of  movement.  Consciousness 
behaves  just  like  a  power  entering  matter  in  order 
to  draw  the  highest  possible  advantage  from  the 
elasticity  it  finds  therein,  to  take  possession  of 
matter  from  the  side  of  movement  as  well  as  from 
that  of  sensation  :  from  the  side  of  movement,  by 
an  explosive  action  setting  free,  in  a  flash,  energy 
drawn  from  matter  through  years  and  years,  and 
directing  this  energy  in  a  chosen  way;  from  the 
side  of  sensation,  by  an  effort  of  concentration 
which  seizes  as  a  whole,  in  one  moment,  billions 
of  events  happening  in  things,  and  thus  allows 
us  to  control  them. 

Thus  all  the  lines  of  facts  we  follow  seem  to 
converge  on  the  same  point,  a  point  at  which  we 
seem  to  see  the  following  image  arise  :  on  the  one 
hand,  matter  subject  to  necessity,  a  kind  of 
immense  machine,  without  memory,  or  at  least 
having  only  just  sufficient  memory  to  bridge  the 
interval  between  one  instant  and  the  next,  each 
of  the  states  of  the  material  world  being  capable, 
or  almost  so,  of  mathematical  deduction  from  the 
preceding  state,  and  consequently  adding  nothing 
thereto;  on  the  other  hand,  consciousness — that 
is  to  say,  on  the  contrary,  a  force  essentially  free 
and  essentially  memory,  a  force  whose  very 
character  is  to  pile  up  the  past  on  the  past,  like  a 
rolling  snowball,  and  at  every  instant  of  duration 
to  organise  with  this  past  something  new  which  is 
a  real  creation.  That  these  two  forms  of  exist- 
ence, matter  and  consciousness,  have  indeed  a 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     119 

common  origin,  seems  to  me  probable.  I  believe 
that  the  first  is  a  reversal  of  the  second,  that  while 
consciousness  is  action  that  continually  creates 
and  multiplies,  matter  is  action  which  continually 
unmakes  itself  and  wears  out;  and  I  believe  also 
that  neither  the  matter  constituting  a  world  nor 
the  consciousness  which  utilises  this  matter  can 
be  explained  by  themselves,  and  that  there  is  a 
common  source  of  both  this  matter  and  this  con- 
sciousness. But  I  cannot  now  enter  deeply  into 
this  question.  Let  it  suffice  to  say  that  I  see  in 
the  whole  evolution  of  life  on  our  planet  an  effort 
of  this  essentially  creative  force  to  arrive,  by 
traversing  matter,  at  something  which  is  only 
realised  in  man,  and  which,  moreover,  even  in 
man,  is  realised  only  imperfectly. 

There  is  no  need  to  recall  here  all  the  facts 
which,  since  Lamarck  in  France  and  Darwin  in 
England,  have  been  adduced  to  confirm  the  idea 
of  an  evolution  of  species,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
generation  of  some  species  from  others,  com- 
mencing by  forms  probably  of  infinite  simplicity. 
I  think  that  on  this  head  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
pute the  results  accepted  to-day  by  practically  all 
biologists.  And  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire 
the  enormous  amount  of  effort  expended  during 
the  last  fifty  years  to  show  the  part  played  in  the 
evolution  of  living  beings  by  the  necessity  these 
labour  under  to  adapt  themselves  to  their 
environment.  But  this  necessity  of  adaptation 
explains,  to  my  thinking,  the  arrests  of  life  at 


120   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

such  or  such  determinate  forms  much  more  than 
the  movement  through  which  life  becomes  more 
complex  and  raises  itself  towards  greater  and 
greater  efficiency.  A  very  simple  rudimentary 
being  is  as  well  adapted  as  a  man  to  its  environ- 
ment, since  it  succeeds  in  living  in  it :  why,  then, 
if  adaptation  explains  everything,  has  life  gone 
on  complicating  itself,  and,  moreover,  compli- 
cating itself  more  and  more  delicately  and 
dangerously?  Molluscs  such  as  the  Lingulae, 
existing  at  the  present  time,  existed  also  in  the 
remotest  ages  of  the  palaeozoic  era.  Why  did 
life  go  any  further  ?  Why,  if  there  is  not  behind 
life  an  impulse,  an  immense  impulse  to  climb 
higher  and  higher,  to  run  greater  and  greater  risks 
in  order  to  arrive  at  greater  and  greater  efficiency  ? 
I  think  it  is  hard  to  survey  the  whole  of  the 
evolution  of  life  without  the  impression  that  this 
impulse  is  a  reality.  The  error  is  to  believe  that 
this  impulse  has  projected  living  matter  in  a 
single  direction,  that  species  are  classified  along  a 
single  scale,  that  everything  has  gone  on  smoothly 
and  without  let  or  hindrance.  It  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, obvious  that  the  force  I  speak  of  has  found 
resistances  in  the  matter  it  had  to  make  use  of; 
that  it  has  been  obliged  to  split  up — I  mean  to 
share  along  lines  of  different  evolution  the  dif- 
ferent tendencies  it  carried ;  that  on  each  of  these 
lines  there  is  a  crowd  of  failures,  of  deviations, 
of  reversions ;  that  many  of  these  lines  of  evolu- 
tion have  not  been  able  to  go  on  very  far;  that 


LIFE    AND    CONSCIOUSNESS     121 

two  alone  seem  to  have  led  to  a  certain  success, 
partial  only  on  one,  but  relatively  complete  on 
the  other.  These  two  lines  are  those  of  the 
Arthropods  and  the  Vertebrates.  At  the  end  of 
the  first  we  find  instinct  in  its  most  marvellous 
forms;  at  the  end  of  the  second,  the  human 
intellect.  It  seems  then,  indeed,  as  if  the  force  I 
speak  of  were  a  force  that  contained  in  itself,  at 
least  potentially,  and  interfused,  the  two  forms  of 
consciousness  that  we  call  instinct  and  intelli- 
gence. 

Things  seem  to  happen  as  if  an  immense  cur- 
rent of  consciousness  (a  consciousness  which 
includes  a  multitude  of  potentialities  all  crowd- 
ing on  and  hindering  each  other)  had  traversed 
matter  in  order  to  entice  it  to  organisation  and 
make  of  this  matter,  which  is  necessity  itself,  an 
instrument  of  liberty.  But  it  has  scarcely 
escaped  being  itself  ensnared.  Matter,  which  is 
essentially  automatism  and  necessity,  enfolds  the 
consciousness  which  seeks  to  entice  it,  converts  it 
to  its  own  automatism,  and  lulls  it  into  its  own 
unconsciousness.  On  certain  lines  of  evolution, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  this 
automatism  and  unconsciousness  have  become 
the  rule,  and  the  liberty  of  the  evolutive  force 
cannot  show  itself  except  in  the  creation  of  forms 
which  are,  indeed,  veritable  works  of  art.  These 
unforeseeable  forms,  once  created,  repeat  them- 
selves automatically,  and  the  individual  has  no 
power  of  choice.  On  other  lines,  consciousness 


122    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

succeeds  in  disentangling  itself  sufficiently  for 
the  individual  to  have  a  certain  latitude  of  choice, 
a  certain  feeling,  but  the  necessities  of  life  are 
there,  and  make  of  this  power  of  choice  a  simple 
auxiliary  of  material  existence.  Thus,  along  the 
whole  course  of  the  evolution  of  life,  liberty  is 
dogged  by  automatism,  and  in  the  long  run  is 
stifled  by  it.  With  man  alone  the  chain  has  been 
broken.  I  cannot  here  enter  into  detail  as  to  the 
causes  which  have  permitted  life,  by  a  sudden 
leap  from  animal  to  man,  to  break  the  chain.  I 
confine  myself  to  saying  that  the  human  brain, 
although,  seen  from  without,  it  differs  little  from 
that  of  a  highly  developed  animal,  yet  possesses 
this  remarkable  feature — that  it  can  oppose  to 
every  contracted  habit  another  habit,  to  every 
kind  of  automatism  another  automatism,  so  that 
in  man  liberty  succeeds  in  freeing  itself  by 
setting  necessity  to  fight  against  necessity. 

I  doubt  that  the  evolution  of  life  will  ever  be 
explained  by  a  mere  combination  of  mechanical 
forces.  Obviously  there  is  a  vital  impulse  :  what 
I  was  just  calling  an  impulse  towards  a  higher 
and  higher  efficiency,  something  which  ever  seeks 
to  transcend  itself,  to  extract  from  itself  more 
than  there  is — in  a  word,  to  create.  Now,  a  force 
which  draws  from  itself  more  than  it  contains, 
which  gives  more  than  it  has,  is  precisely  what  is 
called  a  spiritual  force  :  in  fact,  I  do  not  see  how 
otherwise  spirit  is  to  be  defined.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  are  wrong  when  we  fail  to  take 


LIFE   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     123 

into  account,  in  the  explanation  of  the  organic 
world,  the  obstacles  of  every  kind  which  this  force 
encounters.  The  spectacle  of  the  evolution  of 
life  from  its  very  beginning  down  to  man  suggests 
to  us  the  image  of  a  current  of  consciousness 
which  flows  down  into  matter  as  into  a  tunnel, 
which  endeavours  to  advance,  which  makes  efforts 
on  every  side,  thus  digging  galleries  most  of 
which  are  stopped  by  a  rock  that  is  too  hard,  but 
which,  in  one  direction  at  least,  prove  possible  to 
follow  to  the  end  and  break  out  into  the  light  once 
more.  This  direction  is  the  line  of  evolutipn 
resulting  in  man.  Now,  what  has  been  gained 
by  forcing  this  tunnel,  and  why  did  life  start  on 
the  undertaking  ?  Here,  again,  new  lines  of  facts 
might  lead  us  to  a  plausible  conclusion,  one  that 
may  become  more  and  more  probable.  But  I 
have  so  little  time,  and  it  would  be  necessary  to 
enter  into  such  great  detail  on  the  mechanism  of 
psychical  facts — above  all,  on  the  physio-psycho- 
logical relation — that  I  can  now  only  formulate 
briefly  my  conclusions.  When,  setting  one 
against  the  other,  we  examine  consciousness  and 
matter  in  their  mutual  reactions,  we  have  the 
impression  that  matter  plays  at  first,  in  relation  to 
consciousness,  the  part  of  an  instrument  that  cuts 
it  up  in  order  to  bring  about  a  greater  precision. 
A  thought  only  becomes  precise  when  it  is  divided 
into  words,  that  is,  if  it  can  be  so  divided;  an 
orator  does  not  quite  know  what  he  is  going  to 
say,  and  what  he  means  to  say,  until  he  has  taken 


i24    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

a  sheet  of  paper  and  set  forth  clearly  in  separate 
phrases,  placed  side  by  side,  what  in  his  mind 
was  given  in  a  state  of  mutual  interpenetration. 
Thus  first  does  matter  separate  that  which  was 
blended,  and  distinguish  what  was  confused. 
But  moreover,  and  above  all,  matter  is  what  pro- 
vokes effort  and  renders  it  possible.  The  thought 
which  is  only  thought,  the  work  of  art  which  is 
only  in  the  conceptual  state,  the  poem  which  is 
only  a  dream,  costs  as  yet  no  effort :  what  re- 
quires an  effort  is  the  material  realisation  of  the 
poem  in  words,  of  the  artistic  conception  in  a 
statue  or  a  picture.  This  effort  is  painful,  it  may 
be  very  painful ;  and  yet,  whilst  making  it,  we 
feel  that  it  is  as  precious  as,  and  perhaps  more 
precious  than,  the  work  it  results  in,  because, 
thanks  to  it,  we  have  drawn  from  ourselves  not 
only  all  that  was  there,  but  more  than  was  there  : 
we  have  raised  ourselves  above  ourselves. 

Now,  this  effort  would  not  have  been  put  forth 
without  matter,  which,  by  the  unique  nature  of  the 
resistance  it  opposes  and  the  unique  nature  of  the 
docility  to  which  it  can  be  brought,  plays  at  one 
and  the  same  time  the  role  of  obstacle  and 
stimulus,  causes  us  to  feel  our  force  and  also  to 
succeed  in  intensifying  it. 

Philosophers  who  have  speculated  on  the 
significance  of  life  and  the  destiny  of  man  have 
not  sufficiently  remarked  that  Nature  has  taken 
pains  to  give  us  notice  every  time  this  destiny  is 
accomplished;  she  has  set  up  a  sign  which 


LIFE  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     125 

apprises  us  every  time  our  activity  is  in  full  ex- 
pansion; this  sign  is  joy.  I  say  joy;  I  do  not 
say  pleasure.  Pleasure,  in  point  of  fact,  is  no 
more  than  an  instrument  contrived  by  Nature  to 
obtain  from  the  individual  the  preservation  and 
the  propagation  of  life ;  it  gives  us  no  information 
concerning  the  direction  in  which  life  is  flung 
forward.  True  joy,  on  the  contrary,  is  always 
an  emphatic  signal  of  the  triumph  of  life.  Now, 
if  we  follow  this  new  line  of  facts,  we  find  that 
wherever  joy  is,  creation  has  been,  and  that  the 
richer  the  creation  the  deeper  the  joy.  The 
mother  looking  upon  her  child  is  joyous  because 
she  has  the  consciousness  of  having  created  it, 
physically  and  morally.  A  man  who  succeeds  in 
his  enterprise — for  example,  a  captain  of  indus- 
try whose  business  is  prospering — is  he  joyous 
solely  on  account  of  the  money  he  is  winning  and 
the  notoriety  he  has  acquired?  Doubtless  these 
elements  count  for  much  in  the  satisfaction  he 
feels;  but  they  bring  him  pleasures  rather  than 
joy,  and  whatever  true  joy  he  tastes  belongs 
essentially  to  the  consciousness  he  has  of  having 
established  an  enterprise  which  marches  on,  of 
having  created  something  that  goes  ahead.  Con- 
sider exceptional  joys  like  those  of  the  great 
artist  who  has  produced  a  masterpiece,  of  the 
scientific  man  who  has  made  a  discovery  or  inven- 
tion. We  sometimes  say  they  have  worked  for 
glory  and  derive  their  greatest  satisfaction  from 
the  applause  of  mankind.  Profound  mistake ! 


126  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

We  care  for  praise  in  the  exact  measure  in  which 
we  feel  not  sure  of  having  succeeded ;  it  is  because 
we  want  to  be  reassured  as  to  our  own  value  and 
as  to  the  value  of  what  we  have  done  that  we  seek 
praise  and  prize  glory.  But  he  who  is  certain, 
absolutely  certain,  that  he  has  brought  a  living 
work  to  the  birth,  cares  no  more  for  praise  and 
feels  himself  beyond  glory,  because  there  is  no 
greater  joy  than  that  of  feeling  oneself  a  creator. 
If,  then,  in  every  province,  the  triumph  of  life  is 
expressed  by  creation,  ought  we  not  to  think  that 
the  ultimate  reason  of  human  life  is  a  creation 
which,  in  distinction  from  that  of  the  artist  or  man 
of  science,  can  be  pursued  at  every  moment  and 
by  all  men  alike ;  I  mean  the  creation  of  self  by 
self,  the  continual  enrichment  of  personality  by 
elements  which  it  does  not  draw  from  outside,  but 
causes  to  spring  forth  from  itself? 

May  we  not  therefore  suppose  that  the  passage 
of  consciousness  through  matter  is  destined  to 
bring  to  precision, — in  the  form  of  distinct  per- 
sonalities,— tendencies  or  potentialities  which  at 
first  were  mingled,  and  also  to  permit  these  per- 
sonalities to  test  their  force  whilst  at  the  same 
time  increasing  it  by  an  effort  of  self-creation? 
On  the  other  hand,  when  we  see  that  conscious- 
ness, whilst  being  at  once  creation  and  choice,  is 
also  memory,  that  one  of  its  essential  functions  is 
to  accumulate  and  preserve  the  past,  that  very 
probably  (I  lack  time  to  attempt  the  demonstra- 
tion of  this  point)  the  brain  is  an  instrument  of 


LIFE  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS     127 

forgetfulness  as  much  as  one  of  remembrance, 
and  that  in  pure  consciousness  nothing  of  the  past 
is  lost,  the  whole  life  of  a  conscious  personality 
being  an  indivisible  continuity,  are  we  not  led  to 
suppose  that  the  effort  continues  beyond,  and  that 
in  this  passage  of  consciousness  through  matter 
(the  passage  which  at  the  tunnel's  exit  gives  dis- 
tinct personalities)  consciousness  is  tempered  like 
steel,  and  tests  itself  by  clearly  constituting  per- 
sonalities and  preparing  them,  by  the  very  effort 
which  each  of  them  is  called  upon  to  make,  for  a 
higher  form  of  existence?  If  we  admit  that  with 
man  consciousness  has  finally  left  the  tunnel,  that 
everywhere  else  consciousness  has  remained  im- 
prisoned, that  every  other  species  corresponds  to 
the  arrest  of  something  which  in  man  succeeded 
in  overcoming  resistance  and  in  expanding  almost 
freely,  thus  displaying  itself  in  true  personalities 
capable  of  remembering  all  and  willing  all  and 
controlling  their  past  and  their  future,  we  shall 
have  no  repugnance  in  admitting  that  in  many, 
though  perhaps  in  man  alone,  consciousness  pur- 
sues its  path  beyond  this  earthly  life. 

This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion, 
the  aspirations  of  our  moral  nature  are  not  in  the 
least  contradicted  by  positive  science.  On  this, 
as  on  many  other  points,  I  quite  agree  with  the 
opinion  expressed  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  many 
of  his  works,  and  especially  in  his  admirable  book 
on  Life  and  Matter.  How  could  there  be  dis- 
harmony between  our  intuitions  and  our  science, 


128    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

how  especially  could  our  science  make  us  re- 
nounce our  intuitions,  if  these  intuitions  are  some- 
thing like  instinct — an  instinct  conscious,  refined, 
spiritualised — and  if  instinct  is  still  nearer  life 
than  intellect  and  science?  Intuition  and  intel- 
lect do  not  oppose  each  other,  save  where  intuition 
refuses  to  become  more  precise  by  coming  into 
touch  with  facts  scientifically  studied,  and  where 
intellect,  instead  of  confining  itself  to  science 
proper  (that  is,  to  what  can  be  inferred  from  facts 
or  proved  by  reasoning),  combines  with  this  an 
unconscious  and  inconsistent  metaphysic  which 
in  vain  lays  claim  to  scientific  pretensions.  The 
future  seems  to  belong  to  a  philosophy  which  will 
take  into  account  the  whole  of  what  is  given  :  1 
shall  have  attained  the  object  I  proposed  if  I  have 
succeeded  in  indicating  to  you,  however  vaguely, 
the  direction  in  which  such  a  philosophy  would 
lead  us. 

HENRI  BERGSON. 

PARIS. 


129 


PLEOCHROIC   HALOES.* 

By  Prof.  John  foly,  F.R.S. 

It  is  now  well  established  that  a  helium  atom 
is  expelled  from  certain  of  the  radioactive 
elements  at  the  moment  of  transformation.  The 
helium  atom  or  alpha  ray  leaves  the  transforming 
atom  with  a  velocity  which  varies  in  the  different 
radioactive  elements,  but  which  is  always  very 
great,  attaining  as  much  as  2  x  io9  cms.  per 
second;  a  velocity  which,  if  unchecked,  would 
carry  the  atom  round  the  earth  in  less  than  two 
seconds.  The  alpha  ray  carries  a  positive  charge 
of  double  the  ionic  amount. 

When  an  alpha  ray  is  discharged  from  the 
transforming  element  into  a  gaseous  medium  its 
velocity  is  rapidly  checked  and  its  energy 
absorbed.  A  certain  amount  of  energy  is  thus 
transferred  from  the  transforming  atom  to  the 
gas.  We  recognise  this  energy  in  the  gas  by  the 
altered  properties  of  the  latter ;  chiefly  by  the  fact 
that  it  becomes  a  conductor  of  electricity.  The 
mechanism  by  which  this  change  is  effected  is  in 
part  known.  The  atoms  of  the  gas,  which  appear 
to  be  freely  penetrated  by  the  alpha  ray,  are  so 

*  Being  the  Huxley  Lecture,  delivered  at  the  University 
of  Birmingham  on  October  3Oth,  1912. 


130    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

far  dismembered  as  to  yield  charged  electrons  or 
ions;  the  atoms  remaining  charged  with  an  equal 
and  opposite  charge.  Such  a  medium  of  free 
electric  charges  becomes  a  conductor  of  electricity 
by  convection  when  an  electromotive  force  is 
applied.  The  gas  also  acquires  other  properties 
in  virtue  of  its  ionisation.  Under  certain  con- 
ditions it  may  acquire  chemical  activity  and  new 
combinations  may  be  formed  or  existing  ones 
broken  up.  When  its  initial  velocity  is  expended 
the  helium  atom  gives  up  its  properties  as  an 
alpha  ray  and  thenceforth  remains  possessed  of 
the  ordinary  varying  velocity  of  thermal  agitation. 
Bragg  and  Kleeman  and  others  have  investigated 
the  career  of  the  alpha  ray  when  its  path  or  range 
lies  in  a  gas  at  ordinary  or  obtainable  conditions 
of  pressure  and  temperature.  We  will  review 
some  of  the  facts  ascertained. 

The  range  or  distance  traversed  in  a  gas  at 
ordinary  pressures  is  a  few  centimetres.  The 
following  table,  compiled  by  Geiger,  gives  the 
range  in  air  at  the  temperature  of  15°  C. : — 

cms. 

Uranium   i            2.50 

Uranium  2           ...          2.90 

Ionium      ...          ...         ...         ...         ...  3-°° 

Radium      3-3° 

Ra  Emanation 4-*6 

Radium  A            4-75 

Radium  C            6.94 

Radium   F  3-77 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  131 

cms. 

Thorium 2.72 

Radiothorium       3.87 

Thorium  X  4.30 

Th  Emanation 5.00 

Thorium  A  ...  5.70 

Thorium  Ca          4.80 

Thorium  Cs          8.60 

cms. 
Radioactinium      ...         ...         ...         ...        4.60 

Actinium  X          4.40 

Act  Emanation 5.70 

Actinium  A          6.50 

Actinium  C  ...         ...         ...         ...         5.40 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  ray  of  greatest  range  is 
that  proceeding  from  thorium  C2>  which  reaches 
a  distance  of  8*6  cms.  In  the  uranium  family  the 
fastest  ray  is  that  of  radium  C.  It  attains  6*94. 
cms.  There  is  thus  an  appreciable  difference 
between  the  ultimate  distances  traversed  by  the 
most  energetic  rays  of  the  two  families.  The 
shortest  ranges  are  those  of  uranium  i  and  2. 

The  ionisation  effected  by  these  rays  is  by  no 
means  uniform  along  the  path  of  the  ray.  By 
examining  the  conductivity  of  the  gas  at  different 
points  along  the  path  of  the  ray,  the  ionisation 
at  these  points  may  be  determined.  At  the  limits 
of  the  range  the  ionisation  ceases.  In  this  man- 
ner the  range  is,  in  fact,  determined.  The  dotted 
curve  (Fig.  i)  depicts  the  recent  investigation  of 
the  ionisation  effected  by  a  sheaf  of  parallel  rays 
of  radium  C  in  air,  as  determined  by  Geiger. 


132   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

The  range  is  laid  out  horizontally  in  centimetres. 
The  numbers  of  ions  are  laid  out  vertically.  The 
remarkable  nature  of  the  results  will  be  at  once 
apparent.  We  should  have  expected  that  the  ray 
at  the  beginning  of  its  path,  when  its  velocity  and 
kinetic  energy  were  greatest,  would  have  been 
more  effective  than  towards  the  end  of  its  range 
when  its  energy  had  almost  run  out.  But  the 
curve  shows  that  it  is  just  the  other  way.  The 
lagging  ray,  about  to  resign  its  ionising  proper- 
ties, becomes  a  much  more  efficient  ioniser  than 
it  was  at  first.  The  maximum  efficiency  is,  how- 
ever, in  the  case  of  a  bundle  of  parallel  rays,  not 
quite  at  the  end  of  the  range,  but  about  half  a 
centimetre  from  it.  The  increase  to  the  maxi- 
mum is  rapid,  the  fall  from  the  maximum  to  noth- 
ing is  much  more  rapid. 

It  can  be  shown  that  the  ionisation  effected 
anywhere  along  the  path  of  the  ray  is  inversely 
proportional  to  the  velocity  of  the  ray  at  that 
point.  But  this  evidently  does  not  apply  to  the 
last  5  or  10  mms.  of  the  range  where  the  rate  of 
ionisation  and  of  the  speed  of  the  ray  change 
most  rapidly.  To  what  are  the  changing  proper- 
ties of  the  rays  near  the  end  o~  r,.eir  path  to  be 
ascribed?  It  is  only  recently  that  this  matter 
has  been  elucidated. 

When  the  alpha  ray  has  sufficiently  slowed 
down,  its  power  of  passing  right  through  atoms, 
without  appreciably  experiencing  any  effects  from 
them,  diminishes.  The  opposing  atoms  begin  to 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  133 

exert  an  influence  on  the  path  of  the  ray,  deflect- 
ing it  a  little.  The  heavier  atoms  will  deflect  it 
most.  This  effect  has  been  very  successfully  in- 
vestigated by  Geiger.  It  is  known  as  "  scatter- 
ing." The  angle  of  scattering  increases  rapidly 
with  the  decrease  of  velocity.  Now  the  effect  of 
the  scattering  will  be  to  cause  some  of  the  rays 
to  complete  their  ranges  or,  more  accurately,  to 
leave  their  direct  line  of  advance  a  little  sooner 
than  others.  In  the  beautiful  experiments  of 
C.  T.  R.  Wilson  we  are  enabled  to  obtain  ocular 
demonstration  of  the  scattering.  The  photograph 
(Fig.  2),  which  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Wilson,  shows  the  deflection  of  the  ray  towards 
the  end  of  its  path.  In  this  case  the  path  of  the 
ray  has  been  rendered  visible  by  the  condensation 
of  water  particles  under  the  influence  of  the 
ionisation;  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  ray 
travels  being  in  a  state  of  supersaturation  with 
water  vapour  at  the  instant  of  the  passage  of  the 
ray.  It  is  evident  that  if  we  were  observing  the 
ionisation  along  a  sheaf  of  parallel  rays,  all  start- 
ing with  equal  velocity,  the  effect  of  the  bending 
of  some  of  the  rays  near  the  end  of  their  range 
must  be  to  cause  a  decrease  in  the  aggregate 
ionisation  near  the  very  end  of  the  ultimate  range. 
For,  in  fact,  some  of  the  rays  complete  their  work 
of  ionising  at  points  in  the  gas  before  the  end  is 
reached.  This  is  the  cause,  or  at  least  an 
important  contributory  cause,  of  the  decline  in 
the  ionisation  near  the  end  of  the  range,  when  the 


134   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

effects  of  a  bundle  of  rays  are  being  observed. 
The  explanation  does  not  suggest  that  the  ion- 
ising power  of  any  one  ray  is  actually  diminished 
before  it  finally  ceases  to  be  an  alpha  ray. 

The  full  line  in  Fig.  i  gives  the  ionisation 
curve  which  it  may  be  expected  would  be  struck 
out  by  a  single  alpha  ray.  In  it  the  ionisation 
goes  on  increasing  till  it  abruptly  ceases  alto- 
gether, with  the  entire  loss  of  the  initial  kinetic 
energy  of  the  particle. 

A  highly  remarkable  fact  was  found  out  by 
Bragg.  The  effect  of  the  atom  traversed  by  the 
ray  to  check  the  velocity  of  the  ray  is  independent 
of  the  physical  and  chemical  condition  of  the 
atom.  He  measured  the  "  stopping  power  "  of 
a  medium  by  the  distance  the  ray  can  penetrate 
into  it  compared  with  the  distance  to  which  it  can 
penetrate  in  air.  The  less  the  ratio  the  greater 
the  stopping  power.  The  stopping  power  of  a 
substance  is  proportional  to  the  square  root  of  its 
atomic  weight.  The  stopping  power  of  an  atom 
is  not  altered  if  it  is  in  chemical  union  with 
another  atom.  The  atomic  weight  is  the  one 
quality  of  importance.  The  physical  state, 
whether  the  element  is  in  the  solid,  liquid  or 
gaseous  state,  is  unimportant.  And  when  we 
deal  with  molecules  the  stopping  power  is  simply 
proportional  to  the  sum  of  the  square  roots  of  the 
atomic  weights  of  the  atoms  entering  into  the 
molecule.  This  is  the  "  additive  law,"  and  it 
obviously  enables  us  to  calculate  what  the  range 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  135 

in  any  substance  of  known  chemical  composition 
and  density  will  be,  compared  with  its  range  in 
air. 

This  is  of  special  importance  in  connection 
with  phenomena  we  have  presently  to  consider. 
It  means  that,  knowing-  the  chemical  composition 
and  density  of  any  medium  whatsoever,  solid, 
liquid  or  gaseous,  we  can  calculate  accurately  the 
distance  to  which  any  particular  alpha  ray  will 
penetrate.  Nor  have  the  temperature  and  pres- 
sure to  which  the  medium  is  subjected  any  influ- 
ence save  in  so  far  as  they  may  affect  the  prox- 
imity of  one  atom  to  another.  The  retardation 
of  the  alpha  ray  in  the  atom  is  not  affected. 

This  valuable  additive  law  cannot,  however,  in 
strictness  be  applied  to  the  amount  of  ionisation 
attending  the  ray.  The  form  of  the  molecule,  or 
more  generally  its  volume,  may  have  an  influence 
upon  this.  Bragg  draws  the  conclusion,  from  this 
fact  as  well  as  from  the  notable  increase  of  ionisa- 
tion with  loss  of  speed,  that  the  ionisation  is 
dependent  upon  the  time  the  ray  spends  in  the 
molecule.  The  energy  of  the  ray  is,  indeed, 
found  to  be  less  efficient  in  producing  ionisation 
in  the  smaller  atoms. 

Before  leaving  our  review  of  the  general  laws 
governing  the  passage  of  alpha  rays  through 
matter,  a  point  of  interest  must  be  referred  to. 
We  have  hitherto  spoken  in  general  terms  of  the 
fact  that  ionisation  attends  the  passage  of  the 
ray.  We  have  said  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of 


136    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  'LECTURES 

the  ionisation  so  produced.  But  in  point  of  fact 
the  ionisation  due  to  an  alpha  ray  is  sui  generis. 
A  glance  at  one  of  Wilson's  photographs  (Fig.  2) 
illustrates  this.  The  white  streak  of  water  par- 
ticles marks  the  path  of  the  ray.  The  ions  pro- 
duced are  evidently  closely  crowded  along  the 
track  of  the  ray.  They  have  been  called  into 
existence  in  a  very  minute  instant  of  time.  Now 
we  know  that  ions  of  opposite  sign  if  left  to  them- 
selves recombine.  The  rate  of  recombination 
depends  upon  the  product  of  the  number  of  each 
sign  present  in  unit  volume.  Here  the  numbers 
are  very  great  and  the  volume  very  small.  The 
ionic  density  is  therefore  high,  and  recombination 
very  rapidly  removes  the  ions  after  they  are 
formed.  We  see  here  a  peculiarity  of  the  ionisa- 
tion effected  by  alpha  rays.  It  is  linear  in  dis- 
tribution and  very  local.  Much  of  the  ionisation 
in  gases  is  again  undone  by  recombination  before 
diffusion  leads  to  the  separation  of  the  ions.  This 
"  initial  recombination  "  is  greatest  towards  the 
end  of  the  path  of  the  ray  where  the  ionisation  is 
a  maximum.  Here  it  may  be  so  effective  that 
the  form  of  the  curve  is  completely  lost  unless  a 
very  large  electromotive  force  is  used  to  separate 
the  ions  when  the  ionisation  is  being  investigated. 
We  have  now  reviewed  recent  work  at  suffi- 
cient length  to  understand  something  of  the 
nature  of  the  most  important  advance  ever  made 
in  our  knowledge  of  the  atom.  Let  us  glance 
briefly  at  what  we  have  learned.  The  radioactive 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  137 

atom  in  sinking  to  a  lower  atomic  weight  casts  out 
with  enormous  velocity  an  atom  of  helium.  It 
thus  loses  a  definite  portion  of  its  mass  and  of  its 
energy.  Helium  which  is  chemically  one  of  the 
most  inert  of  the  elements,  is,  when  possessed  of 
such  great  kinetic  energy,  able  to  penetrate  and 
ionise  the  atoms  which  it  meets  in  its  path.  It 
spends  its  energy  in  the  act  of  ionising  them, 
coming  to  rest,  when  it  moves  in  air,  in  a  few 
centimetres.  Its  particular  initial  velocity  de- 
pends upon  which  of  the  radioactive  elements  has 
given  rise  to  it.  The  length  of  its  path  is  there- 
fore different  according  to  the  radioactive  element 
from  which  it  proceeds.  The  retardation  which 
it  experiences  in  its  path  depends  entirely  upon 
the  atomic  weight  of  the  atoms  which  it  traverses. 
As  it  advances  in  its  path  its  effectiveness  in 
ionising  the  atom  rapidly  increases  and  attains  a 
very  marked  maximum.  In  a  gas  the  ions  pro- 
duced being  much  crowded  together  recombine 
rapidly;  so  rapidly  that  the  actual  ionisation  may 
be  quite  concealed  unless  a  sufficiently  strong 
electric  force  is  applied  to  separate  them.  Such 
is  a  brief  summary  of  the  climax  of  radioactive 
discovery  : — the  birth,  life  and  death  of  the  alpha 
ray.  Its  advent  into  Science  has  altered  funda- 
mentally our  conception  of  matter.  It  is  fraught 
with  momentous  bearings  upon  Geological 
Science.  How  the  work  of  the  alpha  ray  is  some- 
times recorded  visibly  in  the  rocks  and  what  we 
may  learn  from  that  record  I  propose  now  to 
bring  before  you. 


138    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

In  certain  minerals,  notably  the  brown  variety 
of  mica  known  as  biotite,  the  microscope  reveals 
minute  circular  marks  occurring  here  and  there, 
quite  irregularly.  The  most  usual  appearance  is 
that  of  a  circular  area  darker  in  colour  than  the 
surrounding  mineral.  The  radii  of  these  little 
disc-shaped  marks  when  well  defined  are  found 
to  be  remarkably  uniform,  in  some  cases  four- 
hundredths  of  a  millimetre  and  in  others  three- 
hundredths,  about.  These  are  the  measurements 
in  biotite.  In  other  minerals  the  measurements 
are  not  quite  the  same  as  in  biotite.  Such  minute 
objects  are  quite  invisible  to  the  naked  eye.  In 
some  rocks  they  are  very  abundant,  indeed  they 
may  be  crowded  together  in  such  numbers  as  to 
darken  the  colour  of  the  mineral  containing  them. 
They  have  long  been  a  mystery  to  petrologists. 

Close  examination  shows  that  there  is  always 
a  small  speck  of  a  foreign  body  at  the  centre  of 
the  circle,  and  it  is  often  possible  to  identify  the 
nature  of  this  central  substance,  small  though  it 
be.  Most  generally  it  is  found  to  be  the  mineral 
zircon.  Now  this  mineral  was  shown  by  Strutt 
to  contain  radium  in  quantities  much  exceeding 
those  found  in  ordinary  rock  substances.  Some 
other  mineral  may  occasionally  form  the  nucleus, 
but  we  never  find  any  which  is  not  known  to  be 
specially  likely  to  contain  a  radioactive  substance. 
Another  circumstance  we  notice.  The  smaller 
this  central  nucleus  the  more  perfect  in  form  is 
the  darkened  circular  area  surrounding  it.  When 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  139 

the  circle  is  very  perfect  and  the  central  mineral 
clearly  defined  at  its  centre  we  find  by  measure- 
ment that  the  radius  of  the  darkened  area  is 
generally  0*033  mm.  It  may  sometimes  be  0*040 
mm.  These  are  always  the  measurements  in 
biotite.  In  other  minerals  the  radii  are  a  little 
different. 

We  see  in  the  photograph  (Fig.  3),  much  magni- 
fied, a  halo  contained  in  biotite.  We  are  looking 
at  a  region  in  a  rock  section,  the  rock  being 
ground  down  to  such  a  thickness  that  light  freely 
passes  through  it.  The  biotite  is  in  the  centre  of 
the  field.  Quartz  and  felspar  surround  it.  The 
rock  is  a  granite.  The  biotite  is  not  all  one 
crystal.  Two  crystals,  mutually  inclined,  are  cut 
across.  The  halo  extends  across  both  crystals, 
but  owing  to  the  fact  that  polarised  light  is  used 
in  taking  the  photograph  it  appears  darker  in  one 
crystal  than  in  the  other.  We  see  the  zircon 
which  composes  the  nucleus.  The  fine  lineated 
appearance  of  the  biotite  is  due  to  the  cleavage 
of  that  mineral,  which  is  cut  across  in  the  section. 

The  question  arises  whether  the  darkened  area 
surrounding  the  zircon  may  not  be  due  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  radioactive  substances  contained  in 
the  zircon.  The  extraordinary  uniformity  of  the 
radial  measurements  of  perfectly  formed  haloes 
(to  use  the  name  by  which  they  have  long  been 
known)  suggests  that  they  may  be  the  result  of 
alpha  radiation.  For  in  that  case,  as  we  have 
seen,  we  can  at  once  account  for  the  definite 


140   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

radius  as  simply  representing  the  range  of  the  ray 
in  biotite.  The  furthest-reaching  ray  will  define 
the  radius  of  the  halo.  In  the  case  of  the  uranium 
family  this  will  be  radium  C,  and  in  the  case  of 
thorium  it  will  be  thorium  C2.  Now  here  we  pos- 
sess a  means  of  at  once  confirming  or  rejecting 
the  view  that  the  halo  is  a  radioactive  phenomenon 
and  occasioned  by  alpha  radiation;  for  we  can 
calculate  what  the  range  of  these  rays  will  be  in 
biotite,  availing  ourselves  of  Bragg's  additive 
law,  already  referred  to.  When  we  make  this 
calculation  we  find  that  radium  C  just  penetrates 
0*033  mm.  and  thorium  C2  0*040  mm.  The  proof 
is  complete  that  we  are  dealing  with  the  effects 
of  alpha  rays.  Observe  now  that  not  only  is  the 
coincidence  of  measurement  and  calculation  a 
proof  of  the  view  that  alpha  radiation  has  occa- 
sioned the  halo,  but  it  is  a  very  complete  verifica- 
tion of  the  important  fact  stated  by  Bragg,  that 
the  stopping  power  depends  solely  on  the  atomic 
weight  of  the  atoms  traversed  by  the  ray. 

We  have  seen  that  our  examination  of  the 
rocks  reveals  only  the  two  sorts  of  halo  :  the 
radium  halo  and  the  thorium  halo.  This  is  not 
without  teaching.  For  why  not  find  an  actinium 
halo  ?  Now  Rutherford  long  ago  suggested  that 
this  element  and  its  derivatives  were  probably  an 
offspring  of  the  uranium  family;  a  side  branch, 
as  it  were,  in  the  formation  of  which  relatively 
few  transforming  atoms  took  part.  On  Ruther- 
ford's theory  then,  actinium  should  always  accom- 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  141 

pany  uranium  and  radium,  but  in  very  subordinate 
amount.  The  absence  of  actinium  haloes  clearly 
supports  this  view.  For  if  actinium  was  an  inde- 
pendent element  we  would  be  sure  to  find 
actinium  haloes.  The  difference  in  radius  should 
be  noticeable.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  actinium 
was  always  associated  with  uranium  and  radium, 
then  its  effects  would  be  submerged  in  those  of 
the  much  more  potent  effects  of  the  uranium 
series  of  elements. 

It  will  have  occurred  to  you  already  that  if  the 
radioactive  origin  of  the  halo  is  assured,  the  shape 
of  a  halo  is  not  really  circular,  but  spherical. 
This  is  so.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  disc- 
shaped  halo.  The  halo  is  a  spherical  volume 
containing  the  radioactive  nucleus  at  its  centre. 
The  true  radius  of  the  halo  may,  therefore,  only 
be  measured  on  sections  passing  through  the 
nucleus. 

In  order  to  understand  the  mode  of  formation 
of  a  halo  we  may  profitably  study  on  a  diagram 
the  events  which  go  on  within  the  halo-sphere. 
Such  a  diagram  is  seen  in  Fig.  4.  It  shows  to 
relatively  correct  scale  the  limiting  range  of  all 
the  alpha-ray  producing  members  of  the  uranium 
and  thorium  families.  We  know  that  each  mem- 
ber of  a  family  will  exist  in  equilibrium  amount 
within  the  nucleus  possessing  the  parent  element. 
Each  alpha  ray  leaving  the  nucleus  will  just 
attain  its  range  and  then  cease  to  affect  the  mica. 
Within  the  halo-sphere,  there  must  be,  therefore, 


142    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

the  accumulated  effects  of  the  influences  of  all  the 
rays.  Each  has  its  own  sphere  of  influence,  and 
the  spheres  are  all  concentric. 

The  radii  in  biotite  of  the  several  spheres  are 
given  in  the  following  table  : — 

URANIUM  FAMILY. 

mm. 

Radium   C        0.0330 

Radium   A        0.0224 

Ra  Emanation 0.0196 

Radium  F         0.0177 

Radium 0.0156 

Ionium 0.0141 

Uranium   i        0.0137 

Uranium  2       0.0118 

THORIUM  FAMILY. 

mm. 

Thorium  C2        0.040 

Thorium  A         0.026 

Th  Emanation 0.023 

Thorium  Ct        0.022 

Thorium  X        0.020 

Radiothorium     0.019 

Thorium 0.013 

In  the  photograph  (Fig.  5)  we  see  a  uranium 
and  a  thorium  halo  in  the  same  crystal  of  mica. 
The  mica  is  contained  in  a  rock-section  and  is  cut 
across  the  clevage.  The  effects  of  thorium  C2 
are  clearly  shown  as  a  lighter  border  surrounding 
the  accumulated  inner  darkening  due  to  the  other 
thorium  rays  (upper  halo).  The  uranium  halo 
(to  the  right)  similarly  shows  the  effect  of  radium 
C,  but  less  distinctly. 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  143 

Haloes  which  are  uniformly  dark  all  over  as 
described  above  are,  in  point  of  fact,  "  over-ex- 
posed " ;  to  borrow  a  familiar  photographic  term. 
Haloes  are  found  which  show  much  very  beauti- 
ful internal  detail.  Too  vigorous  action  obscures 
this  detail  just  as  detail  is  lost  in  an  over-exposed 
photograph.  We  may  again  have  "  under- 
exposed "  haloes  in  which  the  action  of  the  several 
rays  is  incomplete  or  in  which  the  action  of  certain 
of  the  rays  has  left  little  if  any  trace.  Beginning 
at  the  most  under-exposed  haloes  we  find  circular 
dark  marks  having  the  radius  0*012  or  0*013  mm- 
These  haloes  are  due  to  uranium  although  their 
inner  darkening  is  doubtless  aided  by  the  passage 
of  rays  which  were  too  few  to  extend  the  darken- 
ing beyond  the  vigorous  effects  of  the  two 
uranium  rays.  Then  we  find  haloes  carried  out 
to  the  radii  0*0 1 6,  0*018  and  0*019  mm.  The  last 
sometimes  show  very  beautiful  outer  rings  having 
radial  dimensions  such  as  would  be  produced  by 
radium  A  and  radium  C.  Finally  we  may  have 
haloes  in  which  interior  detail  is  lost  so  far  out 
as  the  radius  due  to  emanation  or  radium  A,  while 
outside  this  floats  the  ring  due  to  radium  C.  Cer- 
tain variations  of  these  effects  may  occur,  mark- 
ing, apparently,  different  stages  of  exposure. 
Figs.  6  and  7  illustrate  some  of  these  stages ;  the 
latter  photograph  being  greatly  enlarged  to  show 
clearly  the  halo-sphere  of  radium  A. 

In  most  of  the  cases  referred  to  above  the 
structure  evidently  shows  the  existence  of  con- 


144   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

centric  spherical  shells  of  darkened  biotite.  This 
is  a  very  interesting  fact.  For  it  proves  that  in 
the  mineral  the  alpha  ray  gives  rise  to  the  same 
increased  ionisation  towards  the  end  of  its  range 
as  Bragg  determined  in  the  case  of  gases.  And 
we  must  conclude  that  the  halo  in  every  case 
grows  in  this  manner.  A  spherical  shell  of 
darkened  biotite  is  first  produced  and  the  inner 
colouration  is  only  effected  as  the  more  feeble 
ionisation  along  the  track  of  the  ray  in  course  of 
ages  gives  rise  to  sufficient  alteration  of  the 
mineral.  This  more  feeble  ionisation  is,  near  the 
nucleus,  enhanced  in  its  effects  by  the  fact  that 
there  all  the  rays  combine  to  increase  the  ionisa- 
tion and,  moreover,  the  several  tracks  are  there 
crowded  by  the  convergency  to  the  centre. 
Hence  the  most  elementary  haloes  seldom  show 
definite  rings  due  to  uranium,  etc.,  but  appear  as 
embryonic  disc-like  markings.  The  photographs 
on  the  screen  illustrate  many  of  the  phases  of  halo 
development.  Rutherford  succeeded  in  making 
a  halo  artificially  by  compressing  into  a  capillary 
glass  tube  a  quantity  of  the  emanation  of  radium. 
As  the  emanation  decayed  the  various  derived 
products  came  into  existence  and  all  the  several 
alpha  rays  penetrated  the  glass;  darkening  the 
walls  of  the  capillary  out  to  the  limit  of  the  range 
of  radium  C  in  glass.  Fig.  8  is  a  magnified 
view  of  the  tube.  The  dark  central  part  is  the 
capillary.  The  tubular  halo  surrounds  it.  This 
experiment  has,  however,  been  anticipated  by 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  145 

some  scores  of  millions  of  years,  for  here  is  the 
same  effect  in  a  biotite  crystal  (Fig.  9).  Along 
what  are  apparently  tubular  passages  or  cracks 
in  the  mica,  a  solution,  rich  in  radioactive  sub- 
stances, has  moved ;  probably  during  the  final 
consolidation  of  the  granite  in  which  the  mica 
occurs.  A  continuous  and  very  regular  halo  has 
developed  along  these  conduits.  A  string  of 
halo-spheres  may  lie  along  such  passages.  We 
must  infer  that  solutions  or  gases  able  to  establish 
the  radioactive  nuclei  moved  along  these  conduits, 
and  we  are  entitled  to  ask  if  all  the  haloes  in  this 
biotite  are  not,  in  this  sense,  of  secondary  origin. 
There  is,  I  may  add,  much  to  support  such  a  con- 
clusion. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  under-exposed 
halo  is  a  recent  creation.  By  no  means.  All  are 
old,  appallingly  old;  and  in  the  same  rock  all 
are,  probably,  of  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same, 
age.  The  under-exposure  is  simply  due  to  a 
lesser  quantity  of  the  radioactive  elements  in  the 
nucleus.  They  are  under-exposed,  in  short,  not 
because  of  lesser  duration  of  exposure,  but  be- 
cause of  insufficient  action;  as  when  in  taking  a 
photograph  the  stop  is  not  open  enough  for  the 
time  of  the  exposure. 

The  halo  has,  so  far,  told  us  that  the  additive 
law  is  obeyed  in  solid  media  and  that  the  in- 
creased ionisation  attending  the  slowing  down  of 
the  ray  obtaining  in  gases  also  obtains  in  solids ; 
for,  otherwise,  the  halo  would  not  commence  its 


i46  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

development  as  a  spherical  shell  or  envelope. 
But  here  we  learn  that  there  is  probably  a  certain 
difference  in  the  course  of  events  attending  the 
immediate  passage  of  the  ray  in  the  gas  and  in 
the  solid.  In  the  former  initial  recombination 
may  obscure  the  intense  ionisation  near  the  end 
of  the  range.  We  can  only  detect  the  true  end 
effects  by  artificially  separating  the  ions  by  a 
strong  electric  force.  If  this  recombination  hap- 
pened in  the  mineral  we  should  not  have  the 
concentric  spheres  so  well  defined  as  we  see  them 
to  be.  What,  then,  hinders  the  initial  recombina- 
tion in  the  solid?  The  answer  probably  is  that 
the  newly  formed  ion  is  instantly  used  up  in  a 
fresh  chemical  combination.  Nor  is  it  free  to 
change  its  place  as  in  the  gas.  There  is  simply  a 
new  equilibrium  brought  about  by  its  sudden  pro- 
duction. In  this  manner  the  conditions  in  the 
complex  molecule  of  biotite,  tourmaline,  etc.,  may 
be  quite  as  effective  in  preventing  initial  recom- 
bination as  the  most  effective  electric  force  we 
could  apply.  The  final  result  is  that  we  find  the 
Bragg  curve  reproduced  most  accurately  in  the 
delicate  shading  of  the  rings  making  up  the  per- 
fectly exposed  halo. 

That  the  shading  of  the  rings  reproduces  the 
form  of  the  Bragg  curve,  projected,  as  it  were, 
upon  the  line  of  advance  of  the  ray  and  repro- 
duced in  depth  of  shading,  shows  that  in  yet 
another  particular  the  alpha  ray  behaves  much 
the  same  in  the  solid  as  in  the  gas.  A  careful 


PLEOCHROIC   HALOES  147 

examination  of  the  outer  edge  of  the  circles  always 
reveals  a  steep  but  not  abrupt  cessation  of  the 
action  of  the  ray.  Now  Geiger  has  investigated 
and  proved  the  existence  of  scattering  of  the 
alpha  ray  by  solids.  We  may,  therefore,  suppose 
with  much  probability  that  there  is  the  same  scat- 
tering within  the  mineral  near  the  end  of  the 
range.  The  heavy  iron  atom  of  the  biotite  is, 
doubtless,  chiefly  responsible  for  this  in  biotite 
haloes.  I  may  observe  that  this  shading  of  the 
outer  bounding  surface  of  the  sphere  of  action  is 
found  however  minute  the  central  nucleus.  In 
the  case  of  a  nucleus  of  considerable  size  another 
effect  comes  in  which  tends  to  produce  an 
enhanced  shading.  This  will  result  if  rays  pro- 
ceed from  different  depths  in  the  nucleus.  If  the 
nucleus  was  of  the  same  density  and  atomic 
weight  as  the  surrounding  mica,  there  would  be 
little  effect.  But  its  density  and  molecular  weight 
are  generally  greater,  hence  the  retardation  is 
greater,  and  rays  proceeding  from  deep  in  the 
nucleus  experience  more  retardation  than  those 
which  proceed  from  points  near  to  the  surface. 
The  distances  reached  by  the  rays  in  the  mica 
will  vary  accordingly,  and  so  there  will  be  a 
gradual  cessation  of  the  effects  of  the  rays. 

The  result  of  our  study  of  the  halo  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  statement  that  in  nearly  every 
particular  we  have  the  phenomena  which  have 
been  measured  and  observed  in  the  gas  repro- 
duced on  a  minute  scale  in  the  halo.  Initial  re- 


148    HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

combination  seems,  however,  to  be  absent  or 
diminished  in  effectiveness;  probably  because  of 
the  new  stability  instantly  assumed  by  the  ionised 
atoms. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  points  about  the 
halo  remains  to  be  referred  to.  The  halo  is 
always  uniformly  darkened  all  round  its  circum- 
ference and  is  perfectly  spherical.  Sections, 
whether  taken  in  the  plane  of  cleavage  of  the 
mica  or  across  it,  show  the  same  exactly  circular 
form,  and  the  same  radius.  Of  course,  if  there 
was  any  appreciable  increase  of  range  along  or 
across  the  cleavage  the  form  of  the  halo  on  the 
section  across  the  cleavage  should  be  elliptical. 
The  fact  that  there  is  no  measurable  ellipticity  is, 
I  think,  one  which  would  not  on  first  consideration 
be  expected. 

For  what  are  the  conditions  attending  the  pas- 
sage of  the  ray  in  a  medium  such  as  mica? 
According  to  crystallographic  conceptions  we 
have  here  an  orderly  arrangement  of  molecules, 
the  units  composing  the  crystal  being  alike  in 
mass,  geometrically  spaced,  and  polarised  as  re- 
gards the  attractions  they  exert  one  upon  another. 
Mica,  more  especially,  has  the  cleavage  phe- 
nomenon developed  to  a  degree  which  transcends 
its  development  in  any  other  known  substance. 
We  can  cleave  it  and  again  cleave  it  till  its  flakes 
float  in  the  air,  and  we  may  yet  go  on  cleaving  it 
by  special  means  till  the  flakes  no  longer  reflect 
visible  light.  And  not  less  remarkable  is  the 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  149 

uniplanar  nature  of  its  cleavage.  There  is  little 
cleavage  in  any  plane  but  the  one,  although  it  is 
easy  to  show  that  the  molecules  in  the  plane  of 
the  flake  are  in  orderly  arrangement  and  are  more 
easily  parted  in  some  directions  than  in  others. 
In  such  a  medium  beyond  all  others  we  must  look 
with  surprise  upon  the  perfect  sphere  struck  out 
by  the  alpha  rays,  because  it  seems  certain  that 
the  cleavage  is  due  to  lesser  attraction,  and, 
probably,  further  spacing  of  the  molecules,  in  a 
direction  perpendicular  to  the  cleavage. 

It  may  turn  out  that  the  spacing  of  the  mole- 
cules will  influence  but  little  the  average  number 
per  unit  distance  encountered  by  rays  moving  in 
divergent  paths.  If  this  is  so  we  seem  left  to 
conclude  that  in  spite  of  its  unequal  and  polarised 
attractions  there  is  equal  retardation  and  equal 
ionisation  in  the  molecule  in  whatever  direction  it 
is  approached.  Or,  again,  if  the  encounters  in- 
deed differ  in  number,  then  some  compensating 
effect  must  exist  whereby  a  direction  of  lesser 
linear  density  involves  greater  stopping  power 
in  the  molecule  encountered,  and  vice  versa. 

The  nature  of  the  change  produced  by  the 
alpha  rays  is  unknown.  But  the  formation  of  the 
halo  is  not,  at  least  in  its  earlier  stages,  attended 
by  destruction  of  the  crystallographic  and  optical 
properties  of  the  medium.  The  optical  proper- 
ties are  unaltered  in  nature  but  increased  in 
intensity.  This  applies  till  the  halo  has  become 
so  darkened  that  light  is  no  longer  transmitted 


150   HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

under  the  conditions  of  thickness  obtaining  in 
rock  sections.  It  is  well  known  that  there  is  in 
biotite  a  maximum  absorption  of  a  plane  polarised 
light  ray  when  the  plane  of  vibration  coincides 
with  the  plane  of  cleavage.  A  section  across  the 
cleavage  then  shows  a  maximum  amount  of 
absorption.  A  halo  seen  on  this  section  simply 
produces  this  effect  in  a  more  intense  degree. 
This  is  well  shown  in  Fig.  3  (ante)  on  a  portion 
of  the  halo-sphere.  The  descriptive  name 
"  Pleochroic  Halo "  has  originated  from  this 
fact.  We  must  conclude  that  the  effect  of  the 
ionisation  due  to  the  alpha  ray  has  not  been  to 
alter  fundamentally  the  conditions  which  give 
rise  to  the  optical  properties  of  the  medium. 
The  increased  absorption  is  probably  associated 
with  some  change  in  the  chemical  state  of  the  iron 
present.  Haloes  are,  I  believe,  not  found  in 
minerals  from  which  this  element  is  absent.  One 
thing  is  quite  certain.  The  colouration  is  not  due 
to  an  accumulation  of  helium  atoms,  i.e.,  of  spent 
alpha  rays.  The  evidence  for  this  is  conclusive. 
If  helium  was  responsible  we  should  have  haloes 
produced  in  all  sorts  of  colourless  minerals. 
Now  we  sometimes  see  zircons  in  felspars  and  in 
quartz,  etc.,  but  in  no  such  case  is  a  halo  pro- 
duced. And  halo-spheres  formed  within  and 
sufficiently  close  to  the  edge  of  a  crystal  of  mica 
are  abruptly  truncated  by  neighbouring  areas  of 
felspar  or  quartz,  although  we  know  that  the  rays 
must  pass  freely  across  the  boundary.  Again  it 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  151 

is  easy  to  show  that  even  in  the  oldest  haloes  the 
quantity  of  helium  involved  is  so  small  that  one 
might  say  the  halo-sphere  was  a  tolerably  good 
vacuum  as  regards  helium.  There  is,  finally,  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  imprisoned  helium 
would  exhibit  such  a  colouration,  or,  indeed,  any 
at  all. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  great  age  of  the 
halo.  Haloes  are  not  found  in  the  younger 
igneous  rocks.  It  is  probable  that  a  halo  less 
than  a  million  years  old  has  never  been  seen. 
This,  prim&  fade,  indicates  an  extremely  slow 
rate  of  formation.  And  our  calculations  quite 
support  the  conclusions  that  the  growth  of  a  halo, 
if  this  has  been  uniform,  proceeds  at  a  rate  of 
almost  unimaginable  slowness. 

Let  us  calculate  the  number  of  alpha  rays 
which  may  have  gone  to  form  a  halo  in  the 
Devonian  granite  of  Leinster. 

It  is  common  to  find  haloes  developed  perfectly 
in  this  granite,  and  having  a  nucleus  of  zircon 
less  than  5  x  icr4  cms.  in  diameter.  The  volume 
of  zircon  is  65*  io'12  c,cs.  and  the  mass  3X  io'10 
grm. ;  and  if  there  was  in  this  zircon  icr8  grm. 
radium  per  gram  (a  quantity  about  five  times  the 
greatest  amount  measured  by  Strutt),  the  mass 
of  radium  involved  is  3  x  icf18  grm.  From  this 
and  from  the  fact  ascertained  by  Rutherford  that 
the  number  of  alpha  rays  expelled  by  a  gram  of 
radium  in  one  second  is  3*4  x  io10,  we  find  that 
three  rays  are  shot  from  the  nucleus  in  a  year.  If 


iS2  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

now,  geological  time  since  the  Devonian 
is  50  millions  of  years,  then  150  millions 
of  rays  built  up  the  halo.  If  geological 
time  since  the  Devonian  is  400  millions  of  years, 
then  1 200  millions  of  alpha  rays  are  concerned  in 
its  genesis.  The  number  of  ions  involved,  of 
course,  greatly  exceeds  these  numbers.  A  single 
alpha  ray  fired  from  radium  C  will  produce  2*37  x 
io5  ions  in  air. 

But  haloes  may  be  found  quite  clearly  defined 
and  fairly  dark  out  to  the  range  of  the  emanation 
ray  and  derived  from  much  less  quantities  of 
radioactive  materials.  Thus  a  zircon  nucleus 
with  a  diameter  of  but  3*4  x  icr4  cms.  formed  a  halo 
strongly  darkened  within,  and  showing  radium  A 
and  radium  C  as  clear  smoky  rings.  Such  a 
nucleus,  on  the  assumption  made  above  as  to  its 
radium  content,  expels  one  ray  in  a  year. 
But,  again,  haloes  are  observed  with  less  black- 
ened pupils  and  with  faint  ring  due  to  radium  C, 
formed  round  nuclei  of  rather  less  than  2  x  icr4 
cms.  diameter.  Such  nuclei  would  expel  one  ray 
in  five  years.  And  even  lesser  nuclei  will 
generate  in  these  old  rocks  haloes  with  their 
earlier  characteristic  features  clearly  developed. 
In  the  case  of  the  most  minute  nuclei,  if  my 
assumption  as  to  the  uranium  content  is  correct, 
an  alpha  ray  is  expelled,  probably,  no  oftener 
than  once  in  a  century;  and  possibly  at  still 
longer  intervals. 

The  equilibrium  amount  of  radium  contained 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  153 

in  some  nuclei  may  amount  to  only  a  few  atoms. 
Even  in  the  case  of  the  larger  nuclei  and  more 
perfectly  developed  haloes  the  quantity  of  radium 
involved  is  many  millions  of  times  less  than  the 
least  amount  we  can  recognise  by  any  other 
means.  But  the  delicacy  of  the  observation  is 
not  adequately  set  forth  in  this  statement.  We 
can  not  only  tell  the  nature  of  the  radioactive 
family  with  which  we  are  dealing;  but  we  can 
recognise  the  presence  of  some  of  its  constituent 
members.  I  may  say  that  it  is  not  probable  the 
zircons  are  richer  in  radium  than  I  have  assumed. 
My  assumption  involves  about  3  per  cent,  of 
uranium.  I  know  of  no  analyses  ascribing  so  great 
an  amount  of  uranium  to  zircon.  The  variety 
cyrtolite  has  been  found  to  contain  half  this 
amount,  about.  But  even  if  we  doubled  our 
estimate  of  radium  content,  the  remarkable  nature 
of  our  conclusions  is  hardly  lessened. 

It  may  appear  strange  that  the  ever-interesting 
question  of  the  Earth's  age  should  find  elucida- 
tion from  the  study  of  haloes.  Nevertheless  the 
subjects  are  closely  connected.  The  circum- 
stances are  as  follows.  Geologists  have  esti- 
mated the  age  of  the  Earth  since  denudation 
began,  by  measurements  of  the  integral  effects  of 
denudation.  These  methods  agree  in  showing 
an  age  of  about  io8  years.  On  the  other  hand, 
measurements  have  been  made  of  the  accumula- 
tion in  minerals  of  radioactive  debris — the  helium 
and  lead — and  results  obtained  which,  although 


i54  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

they  do  not  agree  very  well  among  themselves, 
are  concordant  in  assigning  a  very  much  greater 
age  to  the  rocks.  If  the  radioactive  estimate  is 
correct,  then  we  are  now  living  in  a  time  when 
the  denudative  forces  of  the  Earth  are  about 
eight  or  nine  times  as  active  as  they  have  been  on 
the  average  over  the  past.  Such  a  state  of  things 
is  absolutely  unaccountable.  And  all  the  more 
unaccountable  because  from  all  we  know  we 
would  expect  a  somewhat  lesser  rate  of  solvent 
denudation  as  the  world  gets  older  and  the  land 
gets  more  and  more  loaded  with  the  washed-out 
materials  of  the  rocks. 

Both  the  methods  referred  to  of  finding  the 
age  assume  the  principle  of  uniformity.  The 
geologist  contends  for  uniformity  throughout  the 
past  physical  history  of  the  Earth.  .  The  physicist 
claims  the  like  for  the  change-rates  of  the  radio- 
active elements.  Now  the  study  of  the  rocks 
enables  us  to  infer  something  as  to  the  past  his- 
tory of  our  Globe.  Nothing  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  known  respecting  the  origin  of  uranium  or 
thorium — the  parent  radioactive  bodies.  And 
while  not  questioning  the  law  and  regularity 
which  undoubtedly  prevail  in  the  periods  of  the 
members  of  the  radioactive  families,  it  appears  to 
me  that  it  is  allowable  to  ask  if  the  change  rate  of 
uranium  has  been  always  what  we  now  believe  it 
to  be.  This  comes  to  much  the  same  thing  as 
supposing  that  atoms  possessing  a  faster  change 
rate  once  were  associated  with  it  which  were 


PLEOCHROIC    HALOES  155 

capable  of  yielding  both  helium  and  lead  to  the 
rocks.  Such  atoms  might  have  been  collateral  in 
origin  with  uranium  from  some  antecedent 
element.  Like  helium,  lead  may  be  a  derivative 
from  more  than  one  sequence  of  radioactive 
changes.  In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge 
the  possibilities  are  many.  The  change  rate  is 
known  to  be  connected  with  the  range  of  the  alpha 
ray  expelled  by  the  transforming  element;  and 
the  conformity  of  the  halo  with  our  existing  know- 
ledge of  the  ranges  is  reason  for  assuming  that, 
whatever  the  origin  of  the  more  active  associate 
of  uranium,  this  passed  through  similar  elemental 
changes  in  the  progress  of  its  disintegration. 
There  may,  however,  have  been  differences  in  the 
ranges  which  the  halo  would  not  reveal.  It  is 
remarkable  that  uranium  at  the  present  time  is 
apparently  responsible  for  two  alpha  rays  of  very 
different  ranges.  If  these  proceed  from  different 
elements,  one  should  be  faster  in  its  change  rate 
than  the  other.  Some  guidance  may  yet  be  forth- 
coming from  the  study  of  the  more  obscure 
problems  of  radioactivity. 

Now  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  halo  may 
contribute  directly  to  this  discussion.  We  can 
evidently  attack  the  biotite  with  a  known  number 
of  alpha  rays  and  determine  how  many  are  re- 
quired to  produce  a  certain  intensity  of  darken- 
ing, corresponding  to  that  of  a  halo  with  a  nucleus 
of  measureable  dimensions.  On  certain  assump- 
tions, which  are  correct  within  defined  limits,  we 


156  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

can  calculate,  as  I  have  done  above,  the  number 
of  rays  concerned  in  forming  the  halo.  In  doing 
so  we  assume  some  value  for  the  age  of  the  halo. 
Let  us  take  the  maximum  radioactive  value.  A 
halo  originating  in  Devonian  times  may  attain  a 
certain  central  blackening  from  the  effects  of, 
say,  io8  rays.  But  now  suppose  we  find  that  we 
cannot  produce  the  same  degree  of  blackening 
with  this  number  of  rays  applied  in  the  laboratory. 
What  are  we  to  conclude  ?  I  think  there  is  only 
the  one  conclusion  open  to  us  :  that  some  other 
source  of  alpha  rays,  or  a  faster  rate  of  supply, 
existed  in  the  past.  And  this  conclusion  would 
explain  the  absence  of  haloes  from  the  younger 
rocks ;  which,  in  view  of  the  vast  range  of  effects 
possible  in  the  development  of  haloes,  is,  other- 
wise, not  easy  to  account  for.  It  is  apparent  that 
the  experiment  on  the  biotite  has  a  direct  bearing 
on  the  validity  of  the  radioactive  method  of  esti- 
mating the  age  of  the  rocks.  It  is  now  being 
carried  out  by  Professor  Rutherford  under  reli- 
able conditions. 

Finally,  there  is  one  very  certain  and  valuable 
fact  to  be  learned  from  the  halo.  The  halo  has 
established  the  extreme  rarity  of  radioactivity  as 
an  atomic  phenomenon.  One  and  all  of  the 
speculations  as  to  the  slow  breakdown  of  the 
commoner  elements  may  be  dismissed.  The 
halo  shows  that  the  mica  of  the  rocks  is  radio- 
actively  sensitive.  The  fundamental  criterion  of 
radioactive  change  is  the  expulsion  of  the  alpha 


PLEOCHROIC   HALOES  157 

ray.  The  molecular  system  of  the  mica  and  of 
many  other  minerals  is  unstable  in  presence  of 
these  rays,  just  as  a  photographic  plate  is  unstable 
in  presence  of  light.  Moreover,  the  mineral 
integrates  the  radioactive  effects  in  the  same  way 
as  a  photographic  salt  integrates  the  effects  of 
light.  In  both  cases  the  feeblest  activities  be- 
come ultimately  apparent  to  our  inspection.  We 
have  seen  that  one  ray  in  each  year  since  the 
Devonian  period  will  build  the  fully  formed 
halo  :  unlike  any  other  appearance  in  the  rocks. 
And  we  have  been  able  to  allocate  all  the  haloes 
so  far  investigated  to  one  or  the  other  of  the 
known  radioactive  families.  We  are  evidently 
justified  in  the  belief  that  had  other  elements 
been  radioactive  we  must  either  find  characteris- 
tic haloes  produced  by  them,  or  else  find  a  com- 
plete darkening  of  the  mica.  The  feeblest  alpha 
rays  emitted  by  the  relatively  enormous  quantities 
of  the  prevailing  elements,  acting  over  the  whole 
duration  of  geological  time — and  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  haloes  we  have  been  studying 
are  comparatively  young — must  have  registered 
their  effects  on  the  sensitive  minerals.  And  thus 
we  are  safe  in  concluding  that  the  common 
elements,  and,  indeed,  many  which  would  be 
called  rare,  are  possessed  of  a  degree  of  stability 
which  has  preserved  them  unchanged  since  the 
beginning  of  geological  time.  Each  unaffected 
flake  of  mica  is,  thus,  unassailable  proof  of  a  fact 
which  but  for  the  halo  would,  probably,  have 
been  for  ever  beyond  our  cognisance. 


246 
Range  in  cms  of  air 


Fig.  i. 


Fig.  2. 


Fig.  3- 


Fig.  4. 


p 


Fig.  6. 


Fig.  7. 


Fig.  8. 


Fig.  9. 


159 


INDEX 


Action,  the  result  of  memory  grasping  facts  successfully,  116 

Alpha  ray,  conditions  of  its  passage  in  mica,  148 

Alpha   ray,    discovery   of,   fraught  with   momentous   bearings 

upon  geological  science,  137 

Alpha  ray,  nature  of  the  change  produced  by,  149 
Alpha  ray,  velocity  of  the,  129 
Atoms,  opposition  of,  to  rays,  132 
Automatism,    121 

Beagle,  voyage  of  the,  and  Darwin's  early  researches,  45 

Bible  teaching,  Huxley's  position  in  relation  to,  25 

Biological  inquiry,  new  school  of,  under  Huxley's  lead,  16 

Biological  laboratOTies,  introduction  of,   19 

Biology,  Huxley's  work  in,   14 

Biology,  the  science  of,  split  up  into*  several  branches,  17 

Huxley's  teaching  and  view  point,  18 

Biotite,  pleochroic  haloes  indicating  action  of  alpha  ray  in,  138 
Bragg's  discovery  of  the  "  stopping  power ''  of  atoms,  134 
Brain  (the)  and  consciousness,  106 

its  functions,  107 

functions  of,  in  lower  organisms,   109 

Brain/  (the  human)  possesses  power  to  oppose  automatism,  122 

Character  :    Huxley's  efforts  foir  teaching  which  should  build 

up  character,  25 
Chemical   composition  of  a  medium   a  basis   for  calculating 

the  power  of  pemetration  of  rays,  135 
Church,  Huxley's  conflict  with  the,  33 ;  his  position,  33 

its  opposition  to  natural  knowledge,  40 

Comparative  anatomy,  Huxley's  memoirs  on,   13 
Conduct  of  life,  Huxley's  view  of,  28 
Consciousness  a  hyphen  between  past  and  future,  105 
Consciousness  in  the  lowest  organisms,  112 


160  INDEX 

Consciousness,  its  relations  with  nature  and  life,  99 
Consciousness  :  what  is  meant  by  the  term,  103 
Conventional  notions  on  the  facts  of  ancient  history,  76 
Creation,  the  triumph  of  life  expressed  in,  126 

Darwin's  early  studies  in  evolution,  45 

Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  Huxley's  championship  of,  36 

Democracy  the  ruling  power,  66 

Descartes,  Huxley's  essay  on,  79 

Divine    guidance    and     command     claimed     among     ancient 

peoples,  a  substitute  for  reason,  58 
Divine  ideas  as  the  basis  of  human  progress,  56 

Earth,  age  of  the,  elucidated  from  the  study  of  haloes,  153 
Education:   Huxley's  work  on  the  London  School  Board,  21; 

his  theory  of  teaching,   22,   et  seq;  school   methods,   23 ; 

his  moral  standpoint,  25 ;  his  views  on  secular  education, 

27 

Education,  scientific,  importance  of,  71 
Environment,    Rudimentary   beings   as   well    adapted    to,    as 

man,  120 

Environment,  spiritual,  64 
Evil,  power  of,  stronger  than  the  povrer  of  good  (J.  S.  Mill's 

view),  70 

Evolution  of  species,  119 
Explosive  nature  of  the  energy  used  for  directing  movement, 

H5 

Foodstuffs    storing    up    energy    for    movement    in    conscious 

animals,   115 

French  Revolution,  faults  in  its  efforts  to  remould  society,  88 
Future  state,  natural  knowledge  brings  no  proof  of  a,  34 

Gases, range  or  distance  travelled  at  ordinary  pressure,   130 
Geiger's  proof  of  the  existence  of  scattering  of  the  haloes  by 

solids,  147 
Good,  power  of,   not  so  strong  as  the  power  of  evil    (J.    S. 

Mill's  view),  70 
Greek  susceptibility  to  ideas,  56,  57 

Halo  development,    144 
Halo,  formation  of  a,  141 
Haloes,  "  under-exposed,"   143 


INDEX  161 

Helium  atom,  the,   129 

History,  the  study  of,  73 

Human  progress  due  to  creative  and  life-giving  impulses,  56 

Human  race,  unity  of  the  history  of,  QI 

Human  science,  how  the  study  of,  should  be  organised,  94 

Human  science,  the  twentieth  century,  the  great  age  of,  83 

Huvelin,  M.P.,  on  the  importance  of  historical  studies,  75 

Huxley ,  lecture  on,  by  Sir  Michael  Foster,  9  et  seq 

Huxley,  a  philosopher  and  a  theologian,  53 

Huxley  and  Natural  Selection,  by  Prof.  E.  B.  Poulton,  45, 
et  seq 

Huxley  not  a  Materialist,  5 

Huxley,  as  a  member  of  the  London  School  Board,  21 

Huxley,  his  connection  with  Birmingham,  4;  his  love  of 
knowledge,  10 ;  his  interest  in  machinery,  n  :  his  early 
wish  to  be  an  engineer,  12;  his  labours  in  the  field  of 
comparative  anatomy,  13;  his  voyage  on  the  Rattlesnake 
and  its  results,  14;  Huxley  as  a  teacher,  16 

Huxley,  his  conflict  with  the  Church,  33 ;  his  championship  of 
Darwin,  36 

Huxley  lectures,  complete  list  of,  5 

Ideas,  intellectual  presentation  of,  66 

Impulse  in  low  organisms  to  advance  into  a  higher  state,  120 

Inquiry,  spirit  of,  calling  in  question  established  principles, 

68 

lonisation  effected  by  various  rays,  131 
lonisation,  nature  of,  attending  the  passage  of  the  rays,  136 

Jews,  the,  owe  their  place  in  history  to  their  belief  in  divine 

government,   56,  57 
Joy,  a  signal  of  the  triumph  of  life,   125 

Leibnitz's  definition  of  matter,   104 

Life  and  Consciousness,  by  H.  Bergson,  99  et  seq 

Life,  conduct  of,  Huxley's  view  of,  28 

Life,  entrance  of,  into  the  world,  113 

Literary  education  imperfect  unless  accompanied  by  scientific 

teaching,  71 

Lodge  (Sir  Oliver),  Life  and  Matter,  127 
London  School  Board,  Huxley's  connection  with,  21 


i62  INDEX 

Machinery,  Huxley's  keen  interest  in,  1 1 

Malthus  "  on   Population,"   influence   of,   on   Darwin's   theory 

of    natural  selection,   45 ;    and    on    Wallace's    studies    in 

evolution,  46    • 
Man,    evolution    of,    the    unique    instance    of    the    power   of 

evolution  to  break  the  chain  of  automatism,  122 
Man,  nature  of,  to  be  regarded  as  a  whole,  29 
Man  should  be  the  subject-matter  of  teaching,  71,  73 

the  historic  sciences  as  applied  to  the  study  of  man,  73 

psychological  science  as  applied  to,  77 

sociological  science  as  applied  to,    79 

Mason  College,  foundation  stone  of,  laid  by  Huxley,  4 

Materialism,  Huxley  not  a  supporter  of,  6 

Memory,  a  rapid  series  of  successive  vibrations,  117 

Memory  and  consciousness,  103 

Mica,  the  cleavage  phenomenon  in,  148 

Mica,  existence  of  uranium  and  thorium  haloes  in,  142 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  writings  of,  68;  his  view  on  the  religious 

observance  of  Sunday,  69 
Mind  (the),  is  consciousness,  103 
Moral  nature,  aspirations  of  our,  not  contradicted  by  positive 

science,  127 
Movement,  how  a  conscious  animal  obtains  power  of,   from 

matter,  115 

Natural  knowledge,  improvement  of,  important,  31 

gives  man  directive  agencies  and  power  for  the  conduct 

of  life,  32 

Natural  selection  (Huxley  and),  45  et  seq 

Philosophy,  meagre  light  thrown  by  older  systems  of,  on  the 

problem  of  consciousness,    100 

Plants,  basic  quality  of  all  food  derived  from,  115 
Pleochroic  Haloes,  by  Prof.   John  Joly,  129  et  seq 

origin  of  the  term,  150 

great  age  of,  151 

Priestley,  Joseph,  statue  of,  unveiled  by  Huxley,  4 
Psychological  science,  importance  of,  as  applied  to  the  study 

of  Man,  78 
Psychology  of  Religion,  78 


INDEX  163 

Radioactivity,   136 

Radioactivity,  extreme  rarity  of,  as  an  atomic  phenomenon, 

established  by  the  halo,  156 
Radium,  largely  present  in  Zircon,  138 
Rationalism  and  Science  in  relation  to  Social  Movements.,  53 

et  seq 

Rationalism  and  divine  inspiration,  59 
Rationalism,  definition  of,  55 
Rattlesnake,  Huxley's  voyage  on  the,  14 
Religion,  Psychology  of,  78 
Religion,     Unsectarian,     Huxley's     position    as    to     religious 

teaching,  25 
Research    studentships    necessary    to    the    study    of    human 

science,  95 

Revelation  and  reason,  58 

Rights  of  man,  doctrine  of,  "  dead  as  Rousseau,"  68 
Rocks,  the  work  of  the  alpha  ray  recorded  visibly  on,  137 
Romans,  the,  their  sense  of  civic  law  and  order,  56,  57 

Science  and  rationalism  in  relation  to  social  movements,  53 

et  seq 

Science,  definition  of,  55 

Science,  spirit  of,  different,  from  the  spirit  of  rationalism,  70 
Scientific  education,   importance   of,   for  the   well-being  and 

progress  of  society,  71 

Scientific  work  reproductive  and  fertile,   14 
Secular  education,  Huxley's  views  on,  27 
Sensation,  nature  of,   117 
Slavery  abolition  controversy,  ethical  versus  rational  impulse 

of,  60 

effect  of  competition  between  a  slave-holding  and  a  non- 
slave-holding  state,  62 
Social  movements,  rationalism  and  science  in  relation  to,  53 

et  seq 

Socialism  and  its  results,  84 
Sociological  science,  importance  of,  as  applied  to  the  study  of 

man,  79 
Specialism,     extreme,     importance    of    avoiding,     in    human 

science,  93 
Spinal  cord  (the),  a  storehouse  of  ready-made  complex  actions, 

1 08 


164  INDEX 

Spiritual  environment,  and  the  commonwealth  of  spirit,  64 
Spontaneous  motion  in  the  vegetable  world,  in 
Stomach  (the),  and  the  digestive  processes,  105 
Sunday,  religious  observance  of  (J.   S.  Mill's  view),  69 
Superficiality,  importance  of  avoiding,  in  human  science,  93 
Survival  of  the  fittest,  principle  of,  exemplified,  63 

Teaching,  Huxley's  theory  of,  22 
Thought,  expression  of,  in  words,  123 

Thought,  materialisation  of,  into  literary  or  artistic  form,  124 
Town-planning,   in   reality   a  branch  of  human  science,   80; 
value  of  the  study  of  ancient  architecture  in,  82 

Universities  should  become  great  schools  of  human  science,  89 
Vegetable  world,  spontaneous  motion  in  the,  in 

Wallace,  A.   R. :   synchronism  of  his  discovery  of  evolution 
with  that  of  Darwin,  46 

Zircon,  quantity  of  radium  found  in,  138 


Birmingham : 

Printed  by  Burman,  Cooper  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  The  Law  Courts  Frew, 
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